Two league defeats in a row and an unconvincing performance against Ludogoretz undid all of the early optimism and excitement after what most of us considered a successful summer transfer season. Much has been said about the state of the midfield and of defense. I think defense deserves a separate discussion at a later time; it's clear we have problems, but at this point it's not clear what exactly is wrong (because right now everything seems to be wrong at the same time). I would reserve judgement on Lovren, Mignolet, Sakho etc for now and wait at least a few more weeks until hopefully things start settling down.
Our midfield suffers from simultaneous loss of Allen and Can; the issues of playing Gerrard and Lucas together are well-documented; Henderson is asked to do too much and cover for too many players at once, babysitting new arrivals such as Manquillo and trying compensate for every other weakness in the team – it's too big an ask even for Hendo the Superman. Gerrard is starting the season slowly again, like he did the last 2 seasons – I'm sure he will improve, but maybe he won't be able to sustain a run of great form, like February to May last year, for as long or as high a performance level. Unfortunately with all the injures Rodgers can't rest him and with all the turbulence from the new arrivals, it might not be a wise thing anyway. Overall, I don't subscribe to the view that our midfield needs to be fundamentally changed. Unless there are long-term injuries, I see absolutely no reason why it can't be as good or better than last year. In particular, I am expecting improvement from Allen and Can should bring us a different dimension with his physicality.
The biggest reason for our overall drop in performance compared to last year is clearly in the attacking third. This is why all the balance in the team is looking wrong at the moment: the attack that used to scare teams is now laboring badly. I see one big overriding reason for this: style confusion.
With Suarez leading the attack there was no doubt about how we are going to go about things: keep the ball on the ground, constant movement by every attacking player, pressing immediately after losing the ball. Our most potent attacking weapons as a team were quick one-twos on the edge of the area and through-balls into space. Each player among the attacking 3 or 4 had enough technique to pull off those quick 1-2 passes, enough vision to play a well-timed through-ball, and enough speed to get on the end of one. This meant all 3 or 4 attackers could interchange at will, which created enormous problems for the defenders – even if we couldn't score an early goal, after 30-40 minutes of applying such pressure we'd force most defenses to get exhausted and start losing concentration.
The thing that strikes me about our attacking play now is it's predictability. Balotelli gets the ball to his feet, makes a yard of space and shoots, Sterling gets the ball into his feet and dribbles at people who simply back off and block his space to shoot, Coutinho is playing through balls to no one in particular. Players rarely run to meet the ball in space – that's always a bad sign. It's not nearly as bad, but it has shades of Kenny's 2nd season – it's like you had this fiery ball of creativity and you poured cold water on it. Our attack now is no more than the sum of its parts. Also, we seem to have no default, bread-and-butter attacking play any more. Without Suarez 1-2s on the edge of the box somehow lost their potency; the decreased appetite for pressing immediately after the ball is lost means that every failed 1-2 turns into an opposition counter-attack with a lot of our players caught in no-man's land, whereas last season we created so many opportunities after our own misplaced or intercepted forward passes (this was our 3rd big weapon). Without Sturridge and Suarez and with Sterling playing at #10 we also don't have players with speed and willingness to run onto through-balls any more. It was amazing to see how in the last 3 game this Liverpool team would at times simply struggle to produce any meaningful attacking ideas. How is that even possible?
I can see that Rodgers is trying to accommodate for Balotelli's style of play by adjusting some things we do as the team; we cross the ball more and are slowly getting better at using him as a focal point. But in readjusting the style of the team to the Plan B we seem to have lost the Plan A. Obviously injuries to Sturridge and Allen made matters much worse; Sturridge in particular is probably now the successor if Suarez as a leader of our attacking unit it terms of setting the style of play. He orchestrated our attacking play vs Spurs very well and we badly missed it since. Lallana is another potential leader (more so than Coutinho at this point) and again, we are being hurt by his pre-season injury, resulting in a lack of fitness and lack of gelling with the squad. But the good news is, with each game Lallana seems to grow more into the role of a playmaker.
Personally, I think the "core" that would ensure we don't lose the "controlled chaos" style of last year is Sturridge-Lallana-Sterling. Whenever possible, those 3 should play together. It's probably better to play Lallana in the middle and Sterling on the wing rather than the other way around. I can see many teams have done their homework on Sterling and are doing a good job of crowding him out in the middle. I also don't see Sterling as a centre-forward – strikers don't see a lot of the ball, but Sterling needs to be on the ball as much as possible (because he is great at it). Right now his problem is same as Henderson's – he is asked to do too much on his own.
Coutinho is still inconsistent (I would give him 1-2 more years to fully mature as a player), so he cannot be considered "core," even though on a good day, he can totally turbo-charge our attack and energize players around him. Whenever Coutinho and Lallana play together, I'd still like to see Lallana play in the middle.
Balotelli is a work in progress; there are encouraging signs (like he is now probably our best defender at corners – ha! Not a compliment to our CBs), but I would definitely not change our style for him. He is the one who should adjust. Besides, you never know when it all will go off the rails with him – it might happen suddenly without warning and if you've already built your team around him, you'll be in big trouble (ask AC Milan).
Markovic is a talent, but I'm still not sure what his best position is and I'm not sure Rodgers knows it either at this point. He is very far from being any kind of "core" player this season.
Borini can be a very useful player, he is the closest thing we have to Suarez in terms of work-rate. I'd like to see how he would complement Sturridge up front.
Overall, I think this crisis is solvable and we have the players and the manager to solve it. We have a serious problem in attack at the moment, but we can and should be able to build a strong attack with the players we currently have, even without Suarez.
Our midfield suffers from simultaneous loss of Allen and Can; the issues of playing Gerrard and Lucas together are well-documented; Henderson is asked to do too much and cover for too many players at once, babysitting new arrivals such as Manquillo and trying compensate for every other weakness in the team – it's too big an ask even for Hendo the Superman. Gerrard is starting the season slowly again, like he did the last 2 seasons – I'm sure he will improve, but maybe he won't be able to sustain a run of great form, like February to May last year, for as long or as high a performance level. Unfortunately with all the injures Rodgers can't rest him and with all the turbulence from the new arrivals, it might not be a wise thing anyway. Overall, I don't subscribe to the view that our midfield needs to be fundamentally changed. Unless there are long-term injuries, I see absolutely no reason why it can't be as good or better than last year. In particular, I am expecting improvement from Allen and Can should bring us a different dimension with his physicality.
The biggest reason for our overall drop in performance compared to last year is clearly in the attacking third. This is why all the balance in the team is looking wrong at the moment: the attack that used to scare teams is now laboring badly. I see one big overriding reason for this: style confusion.
With Suarez leading the attack there was no doubt about how we are going to go about things: keep the ball on the ground, constant movement by every attacking player, pressing immediately after losing the ball. Our most potent attacking weapons as a team were quick one-twos on the edge of the area and through-balls into space. Each player among the attacking 3 or 4 had enough technique to pull off those quick 1-2 passes, enough vision to play a well-timed through-ball, and enough speed to get on the end of one. This meant all 3 or 4 attackers could interchange at will, which created enormous problems for the defenders – even if we couldn't score an early goal, after 30-40 minutes of applying such pressure we'd force most defenses to get exhausted and start losing concentration.
The thing that strikes me about our attacking play now is it's predictability. Balotelli gets the ball to his feet, makes a yard of space and shoots, Sterling gets the ball into his feet and dribbles at people who simply back off and block his space to shoot, Coutinho is playing through balls to no one in particular. Players rarely run to meet the ball in space – that's always a bad sign. It's not nearly as bad, but it has shades of Kenny's 2nd season – it's like you had this fiery ball of creativity and you poured cold water on it. Our attack now is no more than the sum of its parts. Also, we seem to have no default, bread-and-butter attacking play any more. Without Suarez 1-2s on the edge of the box somehow lost their potency; the decreased appetite for pressing immediately after the ball is lost means that every failed 1-2 turns into an opposition counter-attack with a lot of our players caught in no-man's land, whereas last season we created so many opportunities after our own misplaced or intercepted forward passes (this was our 3rd big weapon). Without Sturridge and Suarez and with Sterling playing at #10 we also don't have players with speed and willingness to run onto through-balls any more. It was amazing to see how in the last 3 game this Liverpool team would at times simply struggle to produce any meaningful attacking ideas. How is that even possible?
I can see that Rodgers is trying to accommodate for Balotelli's style of play by adjusting some things we do as the team; we cross the ball more and are slowly getting better at using him as a focal point. But in readjusting the style of the team to the Plan B we seem to have lost the Plan A. Obviously injuries to Sturridge and Allen made matters much worse; Sturridge in particular is probably now the successor if Suarez as a leader of our attacking unit it terms of setting the style of play. He orchestrated our attacking play vs Spurs very well and we badly missed it since. Lallana is another potential leader (more so than Coutinho at this point) and again, we are being hurt by his pre-season injury, resulting in a lack of fitness and lack of gelling with the squad. But the good news is, with each game Lallana seems to grow more into the role of a playmaker.
Personally, I think the "core" that would ensure we don't lose the "controlled chaos" style of last year is Sturridge-Lallana-Sterling. Whenever possible, those 3 should play together. It's probably better to play Lallana in the middle and Sterling on the wing rather than the other way around. I can see many teams have done their homework on Sterling and are doing a good job of crowding him out in the middle. I also don't see Sterling as a centre-forward – strikers don't see a lot of the ball, but Sterling needs to be on the ball as much as possible (because he is great at it). Right now his problem is same as Henderson's – he is asked to do too much on his own.
Coutinho is still inconsistent (I would give him 1-2 more years to fully mature as a player), so he cannot be considered "core," even though on a good day, he can totally turbo-charge our attack and energize players around him. Whenever Coutinho and Lallana play together, I'd still like to see Lallana play in the middle.
Balotelli is a work in progress; there are encouraging signs (like he is now probably our best defender at corners – ha! Not a compliment to our CBs), but I would definitely not change our style for him. He is the one who should adjust. Besides, you never know when it all will go off the rails with him – it might happen suddenly without warning and if you've already built your team around him, you'll be in big trouble (ask AC Milan).
Markovic is a talent, but I'm still not sure what his best position is and I'm not sure Rodgers knows it either at this point. He is very far from being any kind of "core" player this season.
Borini can be a very useful player, he is the closest thing we have to Suarez in terms of work-rate. I'd like to see how he would complement Sturridge up front.
Overall, I think this crisis is solvable and we have the players and the manager to solve it. We have a serious problem in attack at the moment, but we can and should be able to build a strong attack with the players we currently have, even without Suarez.