Agent In The East

For as long as football has been a professional sport, it’s been acknowledged that the players in the most successful and effective teams combine to become greater than the sum of their parts.

The current Liverpool team are as far away from showing this trait as any side from the red half of Merseyside has been in the last decade. A coherent argument can be made that the blue half of the city have by far the more efficient team, even though they don’t have the caliber of player like Torres, Gerrard, and Pepe Reina to call on.

For the last 2 seasons, much of Liverpool’s play has been characterised by one dimensional, pace-less wingers. This problem led to the signing of Glenn Johnson, a right back signed to make up for this deficiency further up the pitch; Whilst Ashley Cole’s defending has improved remarkably over the years, Johnson still exhibits a naive positional sense that will be capitalised on at grounds up and down the country.

A new development this season appears to be the employment of Steven Gerrard in a deep playmaking role. This naturally places higher demands on his defensive skills, which were found wanting for Manchester City’s first goal at Eastlands on Monday night. Gerrard was happy to leave City new boy James Milner, goal side, in the penalty box, as Gerrard hovered on the edge of the area hoping for an offside that would never come. A crisp pass into Gareth Barry gave City the lead they deserved after starting the match with much the greater fluency.

Gerrard has never been a disciplined defender, preferring the cut and thrust of a role higher up the pitch, where he can run forward with no regard to to the potential counterattacking risks a team naturally becomes exposed to. Combined with his habit of trying the difficult spectacular pass, this could be a difficult season for the Liverpool talisman.

City on the other hand, looked like a team where every player was picked in his position to do a job he was perfectly capable of. A summer spend in excess of 100,000,000GBP is likely to give a manager those options, but lack of funds should be no excuse for a side such as Liverpool, who have been left an unbalanced squad in the post-Benitez era. Desipte the shambolic reign of their indebted American owners, there was far too many comings and goings in the Benitez era to ever claim he was ‘building’ a side, let alone a squad equipped for a season long pursuit of multiple trophies. Roy Keane’s brief flirtation with his boyhood team was an undeniable low point in this regard.

If Liverpool are to have a chance of beating Everton in the league, let alone securing the coveted Champions League place they crave, they will need to make some astute acquisitions between now and the end of the two transfer windows. A genuine right back, a left back, genuine cover for the overworked Torres are top of the agenda. With Mascherano also agitating to leave, Roy Hodgson’s troubles are mounting despite his success securing the most important players at Anfield over the summer.