SO CHRISTIAN Benteke is officially a Liverpool player. The Reds have bought goals this summer. No two ways about it. Whether or not we agree with the goals that have been bought, whether or not we feel it could or should have been different, it’s crystal clear that Liverpool have committed to goals. I wouldn’t have bought Danny Ings. I probably wouldn’t have bought Christian Benteke but both are footballers whose raison d’etre is putting the ball in the back of the net. Having urged the purchase of goals, Liverpool have added £75million worth that they didn’t have last season.
By contrast, last summer Liverpool added goals from Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert (we’ll come to Lazar Markovic and Adam Lallana later and regardless neither have that raison d’etre), spending a meagre £20m on goals while selling their top goalscorer, Luis Suarez, to Barcelona for £75m.
It’s a bastard of a sentence that. It was a bastard of a season. A season that started with a throbbing hangover and ended with crippling nostalgia. Steven Gerrard. 2005. Gerrard and 2005. In part, Suarez. It’s a city and a football team which is, on its best day, historic. A city and football team which is, on its worst day, nostalgic. History is something you can learn from. Nostalgia is something which keeps hard lessons at bay, the cotton wool of yesterday, cosy, secure, deadening. Yesterday can be acclaimed without being smothering. Yet yesterday became all the Liverpool of 14-15 had.
Football teams have to move forward. Liverpool have to move endlessly forward. More than any Liverpool side I can remember Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool has to move implacably, endlessly forward and arguably three times in 2014-15 it ceased to do so — July, November and as March turned to April. This lack of forward momentum, this lack of faith in forward momentum which was manifested on the pitch with his selections and approach by the manager in November and by the better players with their lack of faith in their forwards come April led the runaway train of 13-14 into a railway siding.
The first step to rectifying a problem is admitting you have a problem. When Liverpool go into their first game against Stoke City on August 9 there will be the option of £75m worth of goals that weren’t there when they left Stoke City as 6-1 sinners last May. This summer’s transfer business is Liverpool skywriting that there has been a problem. Something went wrong. Something had to be done.
Something has been done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMIpJaReick
In Ings, Roberto Firmino, Benteke and the arrival of Divock Origi after his loan spell, Liverpool have gone heavy on lads whose very essence is performing that most divine of footballing functions — putting the ball in the back of the net. Goals scored by your side create ecstasy. They take us into a state of grace. In excelsis deo. The more goals you score the more ecstatic you should feel.
Michael Owen scores a goal. Hallelujah.
Robbie Fowler is known as “God”.
These things are not accidents. There’s an argument that as society has become more secular football has become, in general, misconstrued with religion. However Shankly was discussing Anfield being a place where we worship back in the sixties. He was right then and has been right since. At our best we worship. At our worst we curse. It’s a temple which can go either either.
It’s Liverpool. So let’s embrace the mania rather than cock a snook at it. Let them — all the thems, all the different types of thems, the rivals of all hues, the punditry class, the grey bearded and/or endlessly angry among our own ranks — let them be wry or insulting, let them be cynics, instead let us be frenzied watching our blood-red clad and beautiful ecclesiastical pure white (with blood red trim) hordes breach defences with force and guile. And anyway, it’s the most sensible approach. The club has addressed the pressing issue. We get to see if it has worked. We get to cheer it working on. Faith and reason can chime together.
In short, there is suddenly a lot to be excited about with these Reds. There are 38 games to be excited about with these Reds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKfEbn12fCY
Liverpool don’t play Chelsea, Arsenal or Manchesters United and City every week. They only play them eight times. Everyone else they play 30 times and everyone else can be blown away. The correlations between wage bill, transfer fees and success across a season which we talk of should work in our favour. Thirty times we should walk onto the pitch with the stronger 11 and stronger bench on paper. The discipline is in making that paper pay dividends as many times out of 30 as possible. Arsenal are the masters at this. Last season Liverpool were dreadful at it. They managed only 24 goals in games against the sides that finished 11th to 20th. 24 in 20. That is a disgrace. Liverpool should go into games next season with five forwards to choose from — Firmino, Benteke, Daniel Sturridge, Ings and Origi. There can be no excuses. These are the players the club and the manager wanted. The first three in harness should be far, far too much for most Premier League defences to handle.
What’s key to all this though is the use, and, oddly, the classification, of Philippe Coutinho. Coutinho is a midfielder first and foremost. Hugely talented and able to contribute higher because of that talent, but a midfielder. In the aforementioned 30 games he should be spending most of his time picking the ball up and seeing three options in front of him, not, as happened all too often last season, one. As a player he wants to be constantly involved. He drops deep and loves to drop in and battle. Coutinho will add goals to his game, he managed it last season, but his primary function should be adding goals to the games of three players ahead of him. Coutinho as a 10 to Benteke’s nine could prove painful to watch. The two need to not be on each other’s toes and both need movement around and ahead of them. The two of them can be Liverpool’s outball in different ways. Concerns about them dovetailing are completely understandable, I share them. But they shouldn’t be a classic partnership. They don’t need to be. Liverpool have a ton of options beyond that and should have moved beyond it.
The 4-4-1-1 the club’s glorious history is littered with is not this Liverpool’s answer — 4-2-1-3 is. It is why that front three has to be populated with attackers. 4-4-1-1 with Coutinho as the one or wide on either of the flank would too easily become 4-5-1. 4-5-1 plays into the hands of the opponents in the 30 games. How 4-2-1-3 stays 4-2-1-3 is by selecting forwards in those wide positions. On The Pink podcast after the Brisbane friendly John Gibbons mentioned how Ings wide means he naturally wants to get into the box. Ings will work but he is a forward. Play him in a front three, it remains a front three. Liverpool need to constantly move forward, Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool need to constantly move forward.
Liverpool also appear to be looking at a diamond again. Even there Coutinho should find himself either side against the poorer teams rather than at the apex. Phil Coutinho looks up, sees three options and ideally some grass ahead of him. Write it on your hand. Tattoo it on your eyelids. No two ways about it.
Around him you have Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Lucas Leiva and Joe Allen. I’d expect Henderson and Milner as two starters week in, week out with Lucas anchoring against the better sides in those tough away games early on before Henderson and Milner are left to their own devices. Pulling last season’s Coutinho back into midfield and adding Milner means this squad has the most energy I can remember from a Liverpool midfield since Momo Sissoko, Gerrard and Javier Mascherano in their pomp. Liverpool should be moving forward, taking the game to their opponents in every game. Our ball. Our game. Last season, far too often, both belonged to opponents. Well sorry, lads, we want them both back now and we might just be equipped to get them.
Behind these lads there are some defenders and a goalkeeper who, even if Liverpool do all this right, are still going to find themselves very much exposed at times but who can also squeeze opponents too. It’s clear, from the manager and his appointments (Sean O’Driscoll and Pepijn Lijnders), the club and its transfers (Firmino to Nathaniel Clyne), the players who remain at the club and in favour and their natural approaches to the game (Henderson, Milner, Coutinho, Mamadou Sakho, I could go on), we are going to want to squeeze and harry and press. Occasionally, for 30 seconds, for 30 minutes, this will come undone. That’s football. Every approach can be undermined.
What’s important is that heads are kept when it is undermined. Everyone concedes. There aren’t a load of terrific centre halves knocking around. Baresi and Maldini aren’t centre back for Arsenal. Kompany looked shaky last term. There is no great team in this league. Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid play in different leagues to us. We aren’t up against them. Let’s not measure ourselves against them. And, again, other than eight times a season, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchesters United and City play on different pitches. We aren’t up against them 30 times.
Those left out from clear roles are the most interesting and could prove the difference between disappointment and God knows where. The question marks, interestingly three of them signed last summer. Lallana, Emre Can, Markovic and Jordon Ibe. Lallana is beginning to remind me of Jamie Carragher circa summers of 2001 and 2002. He is in no-one’s dream 11 but his teammates tend to improve when he features, the manager is going to want to find a place for him and, as was always the case for Carragher at that time, he was better last season than he was given credit for.
He offers a tactical flexibility. Much more than Coutinho — a player more talented — he blurs the line between midfielder and forward. If he excels in both his performances and return then Liverpool could really be in great shape. If he fails to impress this side could and really should pass him by quickly. It is the most make-or-break of seasons for him.
It’s difficult to see where Can gets his requested midfield time from the start in the league without compromising Coutinho as a midfielder, certainly early on in the campaign. He’s surely a way behind Henderson and Milner and Allen has his strengths. Further, it still isn’t clear what type of midfielder he is, though he is clearly talented. It may be worth him not being quite so dogmatic — it’s conceivably easier to make a case from him starting at centre back in the early home games than it is to see him at the base of the midfield ahead of Lucas in those difficult early away games.
But 38 games is a long season. What is present in both midfield and in attack is a lot of energy. Lads who look hard to find a place for in August could find themselves and their legs integral come February and it might well be on the road as autumn becomes winter that Can is able to offer a little more oomph than Lucas as the games become easier and the intensity damages the early 11s.
Markovic is a player who may well find himself the attacking Emre Can. You want to find a place for him but it may well be in the second half of the season that he proves his worth as the campaign begins to take its toll on others. Like Can, his best position doesn’t seem as clear as you’d like but there can be time from the bench and Europa League football to work all this out for both of them. Three years ago Jordan Henderson was behind Jonjo Shelvey and looking likely to go. The Europa League changed that for him and now he finds himself deservedly the club captain. There are about five or six lads I’d be sitting down and explaining that to if I was Henderson.
Ibe’s another for that but the feeling is he already knows this. He’ll be getting a ton of 20 or 30-minute league cameos this season. He should always leave us all wanting more but the manager should resist the temptation as much as he can.
Liverpool are still being linked with one more forward. Mike Nevin was on at me about this. Raheem Sterling goes we should get one more. He may well be right. It’s the Sturridge issue. Daniel Sturridge makes you think “let’s get two belts and three pairs of braces.” Would it be overkill? Given the potential of both Markovic and Ibe and given how pace can only benefit us with Benteke and Coutinho then perhaps. But you offer me one more proven very good attacking player and I’ll get excited. Pace and proven are the thrilling p-words, potential and planning aren’t, not any more. You can’t plan more than one year ahead anymore — Raheem Sterling has given us our yearly lesson in that — and regardless, Ibe, Can and Markovic all remain works firmly in progress. And there are goals to be scored now. A league to be won now. Not as a theory to be worked towards but as an urgent blazing fire that needs extinguishing.
The key thing is that something had to be done and something emphatically has been. As said, I wouldn’t have gone for Ings, I wouldn’t have gone for Benteke. (I always remember that I wouldn’t have gone for Torres. Football makes us all wrong all the time). But the policy was always more important than the particulars, certainly this summer around. Sterling and Gerrard going are two very different departures but both are profound disappointments, and yet we look like we can be far more competitive because while football manages to be about everything while simultaneously isn’t about anything more than the round thing going into the rectangular thing. It’s called a goal for a reason. A goal. No two ways about it.
Liverpool have bought goals. I can shut up about that now which is a relief. It is now about using them. The buying of them might not change everything but that focus, the lack of the hangover, the end of the nostalgia, the return of forward momentum on and off the pitch should change many things. We can know this. We can feel this. We can believe this. We can be let down and we can be disappointed; we probably will be. But faith and hope are their own excitement. Last season it was clear Liverpool had become hopeless. On the pitch, in the dugout, in the stands — hopeless.
Success in football can be about delusion made reality. You need the collective delusion first. Then you need the faith. Then you remake the reality. So: Glory be. Come all ye faithful. Joyful and triumphant. Oh come ye oh come ye to Anfield.
Come. Let’s adore them.
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The radical solution, as mentioned last season, would be to play Coutinho as a deep-lying playmaker behind the industrious Milner and Henderson: he’s not a natural goalscorer or third man running, he is a natural passer from deep. Firminho’s the interesting one for me, does he play behind the striker or wide. The great thing about him is he both presses and scores goals. We need both those qualities.
To paraphrase Marx: football and popular culture have long since replaced religion as the opium of the people. Aldous Huxley was right, as was John Lennon.
To paraphrase Woody Allen: a football team is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we had in our hands in 2014 was a dead shark.
I’m looking forward to this season, FSG have played a blinder as someone pointed out last week. My only concern is the surfeit of no 10s when it doesn’t look as though we’re going to play a system that rewards playmakers.
‘The radical solution, as mentioned last season, would be to play Coutinho as a deep-lying playmaker behind the industrious Milner and Henderson.’
That is a mad one on the face of it but then again he does like a tussle and I expect us to be right up the pitch. It’s a weird one; bit like Barca getting Fabregas wanting him to be younger Xavi and he ends up a bit too Iniesta for their needs. And with Stevie gone we have a ‘talisman of seemingly no agreeable fixed position’ vacancy going. Hopefully we’ll have years to spend arguing over him and enjoying his game regardless like Gerrard.
It’s the Pirlo transition. Most of his memorable passes are from deep.
Yes. Coutinho is our young Stevie box to box. Holds onto the ball in traffic better than anyone.
Great read Neil. Willings suspension of disbelief … I’m all in.
Once again the bird rises from the ashes looking for its long lost perch. 30 games 75 points with 24 up for grabs.
The “Balotelli situtaion” is that he isn’t good enough. There is no situation other than that.
Benteke didn’t seem to have any problems when Villa was running a train on LFC in the counter attack.
The 58 aerial wins from Liverpool tells you why Liverpool didn’t cross the ball last year. Because Sterling and Coutinho were forwards.
Benteke is the most accomplished goal scorer LFC has signed since Torres.
Suarez?
One thing matters above everything else in the next 3 weeks. We go to Stoke and we beat the bloody crap out of them. Because they are going to be hell bent on proving a point and we have to make sure they don’t.
Every season is a new beginning, a line drawn under the preceding campaign, even if you finished it as champions.
The most interesting thing about 2014/15 is how few of the incoming players at the beginning of that season are sure to get plenty of game time now. I think – hope – Markovic can come good. Even Can, the most likely of the 14/15 intake, is still an unknown quantity because of how he was used, or not used, which is a surprise after his international performances in the close season.
We have real selection options now. I just hope the rumours of Sakho going are not serious. We have a shitload of centre backs but he is far and away the pick of them.
Shit the bed! What rumours? Don’t scare me like this. If Lovren starts games over him next season I’ll go spare.
Kevin, someone asked James Pearce point blank yesterday if there was any truth in the Sakho rumour and he replied “He’s going nowhere.”
I’m all in. Good for FSG in bringing in goals – you never know what happens, but looks promising on paper. I always thought Benteke a menice, will be nice to see him in red. I think if this team gets firing, the players bought last summer (which likely where bought to play around Suarez – before he went Jurassic World and FSG said enough) will rise as well.
With this type of preseason optimism, we should all be taking loads of happy beach holiday photos and posting them on Instagram -Enrique style.
Get In!
Also, I hope people will let up on Lovren a bit. He improved late in the season and doesn’t deserve to be the replacement scapegoat now that Glen Johnson is gone. A one-season flop is no worse than a one-season wonder. A flop can get better and prove himself, just as a shooting star can easily fade and lose his lustre under changing circumstances. It makes Liverpool fans look hard and bitter to always pick out a player to heap abuse on.
Yeah, I know… Just giving him a bit of stick now for being our worst ever signing up until this point; once Skrtel is phased out and he does eventually become the new Sami Hyypia to the right side of Sakho I’ll feed him so much carrot it’ll be ridiculous.
Didn’t really play especially well in Australia.
The Sakho rumour has been in two places this week – one the Bleacher Report. It said ‘Rodgers offers Sakho to Lazio.’
I thought…well, you know what I thought!
Brilliant, Neil, as always. Not just the analysis (spot on, again), but the summative philosophy of life. Reading and listening to your work has sustained me through darksome times like Astral Weeks kept Lester Bangs going on through the early 70’s. Affirmation of life.
As another brilliant philosopher, I believe it was Steely Dan, once wrote, “Let your madness run with mine.” Let the goals begin. I don’t know from where (and I like it). But I feel the squad has it in them. Not just the new lads, but some of last season’s crop coming to fruition.
Now, go watch the Benteke goal against Malaga. For the first time or the 20th. It is like the Hendo vs. Costa vine – it just gets better each time you watch. The perfect illustration of Beauty and the Beast, which I am hoping to see a great deal of in the coming weeks.
I like Benteke and can’t wait to see him in red. He has a very good scoring record of a goal every two games over 100 games and that could be even better when you take into account he was playing for a Villa side that under Lambert was probably one of the most soporific sides in recent memory, and he was coming back from an achilles so he would have been struggling for form, fitness and confidence after his injury.
I’ve got no doubt he will get goals for Liverpool, but more than that the likes of Cout, Lallana and the other play makers will walk taller knowing that the if they nail the pass there is a good chance he’ll put it away. (You could see for much of last season the frustration as they looked – often in vain – for the smart run or the space created by the striker pulling the back four apart.
A great buy.
It may also just be me, and I have nothing really to base this on, but it seems to me that in this window Rodgers has got the players HE wanted rather than being offered a range of possibilities by the transfer committee.
It almost seems like a case of FSG telling him that if he doesn’t produce top four this season he is out and him saying ‘fair enough, but if my neck is on the line give me the players I want: not similar to, not alike but cheaper, not what the algorithm recommends, the players I want’.
Sorry Neil, but I think you have got it wrong this time. In my opinion you are getting carried away with your obsession about goals.
If you count last seasons actual goals scored by the 3 forward players we have bought for this season, Benteke 15, Firmino 10, Ings 11.
Then compare it with the goals of the 3 forwards we signed last season. Lambert 14, Balotelli 18, and either Markovic 7 or Lallana 10, then you will actually see that we bought more goals last year than we have this year.
The problem we had last year was that the manager refused to play the players in a way that suited them. Played correctly I am sure that Mario, Rickie, etc would have scored goals for us. Unfortunately it seems Brendan Rodgers doesn’t know how to do that or in my opinion he didn’t want to do it.
Does spending £29 million on Firmino and £32.5 million on Benteke guarantee goals???
Should say compare it with the goals scored before we signed them, in regards to Mario, Rickie etc. Sorry, cant find an edit function on here.
Fair enough, valid point. But this years buys do seem more nailed on than last years purchases of potential and the ‘gamble’.
There are never any guarantees, but Rodgers clearly sees Benteke as a someone who is going to score goals in his team, whereas he saw Balotelli as a gamble and wasn’t able (or didn’t want) to set the team up to get the best from Balotelli, when it became clear Balotelli couldn’t adapt his game.
Comparing stats for the season before the players joined is interesting, but doesn’t tell the whole story. Balotelli’s headline figures look good, but he only scored 7 when excluding direct deal ball goals in Serie A. Lambert also benefited from dead ball duty.
The question is whether, in a Liverpool team playing under Rodgers, Benteke, Ings, Origi, Firmino represents an upgrade over Balotelli, Lambert, Borini, Sterling. I think it does.
No guarantees, but we will see soon enough whether my (and Neil’s) optimism is misplaced.
I’m with Michael in this.
Let’s also remember that 45% of Benteke goals came from Penalties or aerial plays. Sherwood and the Belgium manager had to change the tactics of the team to best suit these characteristics of the striker, we can see that Benteke it’s not one amazing player that can change a game on his own, but a good one that is very good in what he does best, but to get his best you have to provide a team that will play for these characteristics, so, will Brendan change his team style to play “for Benteke”? It’s really hard to imagine this, because i really believe that played by his strengths, Balotelli can be way better than Benteke, and even Lambert would have scored at least 10 goals last season.
Like I said, we’ll see soon enough.
The faith that people have the Balotelli is would be a super star for us if Rodgers did something different is touching. Even if that were true, it doesn’t matter because that isn’t the Balotelli we have in the current Liverpool team. We have the one that doesn’t make the right runs, wants the ball to his feet even with players around him and pops of shots from outside the area at every opportunity. I wanted Mario to be a success, but he hasn’t been. 1 goal, 0 assists, 31 shots outside the box tells a story.
Benteke’s success at Villa hasn’t been all about Villa being set up to make the most of him. He has done well there playing in a number of different systems. Rodgers has stated that he doesn’t think he will have to change his style for Benteke. Let’s wait and see.
You are quoting CrazyBob/Chris Mc/Leanne’s statistic on Benteke’s headed goals and penalties (that is not you again is it?)? Let’s not forget he/she is full of it and that we actually created more headed-goal opportunities than Villa last season despite tactics Tim’s assertions.
Excellent piece once again Neil. Almost worth the £5 alone, reading you wax lyrical. Tremendous stuff
I can tell you I’m that pumped up atm, honest, that Im getting premonitions of us destroying Stoke 4-1 with a Benteke hatrick and one can almost imagine the inimitable Alan Hanson’s MOTD summary “Benteke. He’s unstoppable and a nightmare for defenders. Power,Pace, passion and precision finishing. That’s a potent cocktail”
Unfortunately as we know the only problem there is Sir Alan has packed in his cushy little # with the BBC.
Very good read. Thank you.
Excellent read.
The Reds are coming, and this time they’ve got goals and Mama Sak with strange far eastern animals.
A propose of nothing much: Brendan Rodgers is beginning to look quite wasted, if not ill. Either he’s overdone his health regime or his interview with FSG scared the shit out of him.
A propos of nothing much: Brendan Rodgers is beginning to look quite wasted, if not ill. Either he’s overdone his health regime or his interview with FSG scared the shit out of him.
Sorry about the double post. Mobile phone problem autocorrection on ‘a propos’.
If this doesn’t work out we might as well become Hartlepool…