Oh dear oh dear...what on earth has happened at Liverpool since my last blog. During the Liverpool vs Arsenal game which (un)fortunately I managed to catch the subs appeared on the screen and I thought 'there is not one striker on the bench, not one'. I inevitably thought 'I wonder who's injured' but then realised 'oh my god, we don't have any more!'. I'm not necessarily blaming Rodgers, I'm not blaming anyone as such, but what on earth was that transfer window about? Regular readers will know I'm not a Carroll fan, but he provided something and was a striker. We now have, in terms of strikers and I mean strikers not wingers who have been fielded in a vaguely strikerish role - Borini and Suarez. That is it. I guess also young Adam Morgan who played against Hearts if you're being picky but that is literally it. The Strurridge move never happened nor did Dempsey although again I would call him a winger. He's gone to Spurs for £6 million which FSG were apparently unwilling to pay...you can probably predict my next sentence. Why so so so so much money on all that dross last season and not £6million on a proven quality player who scored 23 goals last season and was beaten only by Van Persie and Rooney I believe.
On one level, I like Rodgers attitude which has been to cut losses. Let's face it, we bought ridiculous players that were always going to fail because they're not very good and we paid ludicrous, outlandish and frankly shameful sums for them. To think what we could have bought with that £100 million spent last year and we ended up with Downing, Henderson, Carroll, Suarez, Adam, Coates and Enrique. Barring Suarez, of that list, only Enrique ever convinced for a period of time and he has gone way off the boil and yet to recover while Coates has certainly shown promise but is not yet the finished article and nowhere near. I really do think they were the worst raft of signings by Comolli (let's face it, we all know it was him) in the club's history. One thinks back to the Evans, Houllier and Benitez eras and there were undeniably very bad buys but actually they made more sense financially and footballing wise than that pile of crap. For instance Heskey had one superb season and other good moments, Smicer played his part in the European cup win, Biscan likewise and even the loathsome El Hadji Diouf undoubtedly had talent, just a complete lack of attitude and ability to make the most of it. But why did everyone get so excited about Downing and co thinking we were going to be title challengers? Deluded.
Anyway, like I say Rodgers attitude has been to get them out. Sod the losses, just get them out as he has with Adam for instance. And he has wisely seen that Liverpool perform a lot better without Henderson and Downing because they're shite. But whoever's fault it was, our lack of reinforcements in the window has been catastrophic and a look at our squad list is beyond terrifying. I know this might seem like a knee jerk blog after my words of encouragement from the Man City performance but I didn't expect us to have no players to choose from by the next game!
Our list of defenders is not too bad, not amazing but not bad. An improving Coates alongside Agger, Skrtel and Carragher is not a bad selection of centre backs and if Enrique could recover his form and Robinson and Flanagan fulfill their vast promise then alongside the defensively dodgy but undeniably useful Johnson and Kelly it's not a bad selection of full backs either. But take a look at our midfield. Having been overloaded with midfielders (admittedly all of them crap, but still) we now have so few it is deeply worrying. Lucas is out and may never return to his best after such an unlucky run of injuries. Joe Cole has been a disaster and again will surely never return to what he was at Chelsea even after he comes back from injury. Of the rest Spearing's out on loan and has perhaps been shown to be out of his depth against the best anyway, Downing and Henderson are awful, Shelvey while deserving of great credit for his progress is not exactly a world beater and Sterling while a mouth watering prospect is 17 and should not have his career jepoardised by being played too much too young (echoes of Michael Owen). Sahin of course is new and of good pedigree so that remains to be seen. That leaves Joe Allen who has made a seriously impressive start I think and the one and only Gerrard who while past his peak is undoubtedly still a superb player. But he gets injured and where are we then?
As for up front, it's so bleak given that none of them is a proven goalscorer. Suarez is undoubtedly a world class talent and scores outstanding goals as he did against Hearts but in that game he also missed easy chances which pretty much sums him up. I'm not writing off Borini, it's early days, but I gather even he is not an out and out goalscorer generally speaking. Morgan for all his hard work against Hearts, hardly looked like the next Michael Owen although again I'm not writing him off.
And just to sum up our misery, even the ever reliable Pepe Reina has had a nightmare week with three mistakes, two of them terrible. He is still a goalkeeper of undoubted world class talent, but his current malaise just makes it all the worse.
So what do we do then? We have to have something. I've seen the rumours about Michael Owen and I think screw it just get him. He can shoot, he's free, get him. We have to have more than three strikers especially one is 17 and played one senior game! To be fair Owen also scored 17 in 52 games for United which really is not bad when you think how many of those games came from the bench. Get Carroll back in January and for god's sake get some players in! Drogba is Drogba, I'd have him. I'd take Anelka as well and even former player Sinama Pongolle I believe is available. He's not great but he's something.
Anyway better report on the games. Hearts was a really depressing night. To toil and struggle against a mediocre team from a terrible league just sums up the present problems. Anyway here's the ratings:
Reina - 5
Awful howler for the goal, although otherwise ok.
Kelly - 6
Worked hard as ever.
Carragher - 7
Good to see him still going strong.
Skrtel - 7
Solid.
Gerrard -7
At the hub of most good things as usual.
Henderson - 5
Loathsome.
Downing - 5
About the same.
Allen - 7
Along with Suarez, best player.
Shelvey - 6
Toiled hard but struggled to create.
Suarez - 7
Full of tricks and a wonder goal, but wasteful too.
Morgan - 5
Looked nervous.
Subs:
Sterling - 7
Lively again.
Borini - 5
Struggled.
Arsenal really was depressing. Liverpool were comfortably outplayed and were desperately poor from start to finish.
Reina - 5
Another howler, oh Pepe come back!
Johnson - 6
Good going forward...you know the rest.
Enrique - 4
Desperately bad.
Agger - 6
Tried hard but little he could do about the attack he was facing.
Skrtel - 6
As with Agger.
Sahin - 5
Anonymous.
Gerrard -6
Hard working as ever but unable to exert too much influence.
Allen - 7
Impressive signs.
Sterling - 6
Lively and tricky but overawed.
Suarez - 6
Isolated.
Borini - 4
Struggled to get involved at all.
Subs:
Downing - 3
Not sure there are any words.
Shelvey - 6
Tried hard and had a couple of long range shots.
All in all, current mood is depressed.
