Even if Liverpool don’t enjoy success this term, it won’t be because they’ve erred like Spurs
TO say Liverpool are making the same mistakes after Luis Suarez that Spurs made after Gareth Bale is wrong, argues Fox Sports’ Daniel Garb.
“LIVERPOOL are making the same mistake as Spurs.”
If there was an award for the most repeated line of the of the Premier League pre-season, that would win it by a greater margin than the transfer spending gap between Real Madrid and Burnley.
It is an understandable opinion, the stories are almost identical. World class player leaves, tons of cash comes in, a raft of big name signings follow. Seven for Tottenham last season, six for Liverpool at the time of writing with one more, a striker to back-up Daniel Sturridge, very likely.
But while the comparison exists on the surface, the differences once you analyse the specifics of both situations, Spurs’ struggles last campaign post-Gareth Bale and Liverpool heading into this one without Luis Suarez, are contrasting.
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Liverpool may in fact struggle to replicate their superb Premier League standing of last season and there are several factors that could contribute to that - the extra mental and physical exertion of the Champions League being chief among them.
Then there’s the improvement of the other big teams - United with a manager who finally fits the magnitude of the position and without the distraction of Champions League and Arsenal with a world class player coming in (Alexis Sanchez) and no-one of similar quality going out for the first time since Arsene Wenger had a functioning overcoat.
And of course, there’s also the not so minor issue of no best striker in the world, Luis Suarez.
But if they are to flounder it won’t be for the same problems that plagued Spurs last season.
INTEGRATION
Firstly, there’s the issue of integration. Tottenham made the error at the start of the campaign of altering the entire core of the team from the midfield up. The side chopped and changed plenty and while AVB tried to keep as many players from the season before in the first eleven he also had to blend in two new holding midfielders - Paulinho and Capoue, three attacking midfielders - Eriksen, Lamela and Chadli, and a 26 million pound misfiring striker in Roberto Soldado.
That’s six players with only six positions from the midfield up all trying to find their feet.
Liverpool’s core, in contrast, will largely remain unchanged. Injury permitting of course.
Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson will again form the midfield axis for the toughest tests while Raheem Sterling, Phillipe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge, much like last season, will be locks in Rodgers’ favoured side.
So that leaves just one spot, for either Adam Lallana after he recovers from injury, a new winger/striker signing, midfielder Emre Can or the 20 million pound teenager Lazar Markovic, to grasp from early in the campaign.
Crucially, they will be allowed to blend in around the five players who know the Rodgers’ style and system so well.
Defensively there will be adjustments, but that was known long before Luis Suarez had taken his teeth out of Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder and packed his bags for Barca.
A back four reshuffle was inevitable for a team that somehow managed to finish one point off the title while shipping an alarming 50 league goals.
Therein lies Rodgers’ biggest test. Dejan Lovren, a leader with an astute understanding of how to marshall a high line from his successful stint at Southampton will be the man the Reds boss looks to transform a mistake riddled defensive outfit.
But the jury will be out to see if Rodgers himself can impose himself tactically in a defensive sense on the team, like he has done so successfully in an attacking manner.
THE MANAGER
Rodgers will have confidence in his ability to do this and integrate the new signings in the final third of the field due to his status of security at the club born from the unprecedented Premier League rise from seventh to second last season.
He has, at the minute, the full support of the players, fans and board with a fresh, bumper long term contract to prove it.
While it’ll be easier to manouevre the new signings around last season’s core there still could be some teething problems. That’s normal. But in a more settled system with a manager who puts his head on the pillow at night knowing he can implement them in the manner he wants without all in sundry questioning him - they should in theory, be able to settle quicker.
Tottenham weren’t afforded this luxury or didn’t allow for it to develop, whatever way you want to look at it.
Andre Villas-Boas did nothing to silence speculation that it was in fact Director of Football Franco Baldini who chose their seven new recruits rather than the manager himself.
Furthermore, he was also faced with the task of a building a new, richly assembled squad without a settled core that came off the back of only one Gareth Bale-inspired season..
As soon as the most minor of cracks started to appear in the Spurs rebuild, the manager was under pressure and that only festered the problem of trying to get his new squad to settle.
Rodgers won’t have to worry about that unless things really fall apart at a rapid rate, which having secured Champions League Football for the first time in some five season, seems unlikely.
But even if they do, it won’t be because “they made the same mistake as Spurs.”
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Originally published as Even if Liverpool don’t enjoy success this term, it won’t be because they’ve erred like Spurs