Its kind of hard judging Liverpool at the moment. In fairness if you asked me right now what i think about how we're doing my answer would be much the same as it would have been at the start of the season, basically we'll have to see how it pans out.
Where Spurs supporters, whose manager has been in place for a similar timeframe as Brendan Rogers, have seen fit to boo their team off their home pitch at least 3 times this season our own manager has seen his name sung by the anfield faithful a number of times. Just to put that into perspective, spurs currently sit in 5th place joint on points with Everton where Liverpool are currently in 12th 6 points of the champions league qualification.
Its not simply blind faith by fans either. if we look at things realistically there is no hiding the fact that after 10 league games under Hodgson we had more points than at the same juncture under Rogers and after those 10 games fans discontent with Hodgon was made widely known at most available opportunities, granted this was somewhat by his own doing in that (fabulous orator that he is) he specifically asked to be judged after 10 games. I have heard some Liverpool fans wondering why we should keep faith with Rogers when Hodgson was so readily cast away by supporters (an belatedly the owners). it is pretty simple really. What we have been able to see so far from Rogers is forward thinking where the only thing Hodgson could look to was the past. There is something to buy into under Rogers where all the Hodge could offer was a face scratch.
The problem Rogers has right now, is that unlike Rafa Benitez for example, he has nothing to point to on his CV to convince you that he can turn this situation around. There is no track record on which to lean. Using Rafa as the example, when struggling in the league in his first season we could look to his 2 La Liga titles for reassurance. With Rogers it is promotion to the PL with Swansea and one season where they performed better against expectations in the PL. Its not exactly reassuring. What is tangible though is what we can see on the field. We have seen our side dominate possession in most games this season. We have seen the blooding of youngsters, some as young as 17 slotting seamlessly into the side. I know full well that at times last season under Kenny we saw some beautiful passing football but it was rarely alongside the type of control we have seen so far this season.Its not much to cling too but its something. Whether that domination can start to turn itself into points is another story, if we are to take this as a starting point then its a good position to start from. If we can win the control of games, it can't take that much to turn winning control into winning matches.
A major problem at the moment is scoring goals. At the moment we have only Suarez who looks likely to score in any game, we really need to start sharing the goals throughout the team. Gerrard, Shelvey and Sterling have all had big opportunities over the last few weeks but many for whatever reason the confidence to just stick it in the back of the net is lacking. Whether that will simply come with time or it is a more chronic problem time will tell but if we can make an astute signing in January to help out in this respect then i’m sure that things will improve quickly.
To break things down, it seems we have a side who cannot score, but can dominate possession. In this situation we wouldn't be in too bad of a state if we were solid at the back, but unfortunately it seems we are prone to shipping weak goals. The funny thing is our Centre Back partnership still looks like one of the best in the business on paper. I honestly think our first priority MUST be to sort out our defence and stop shipping goals. If we're not conceding so many we could maybe get by, even with our poor scoring record. I think the re-introduction of Lucas can instantly improve our shape and make us stronger defensively while also improving out attack by moving the likes of Allen to his more natural advanced position.
As for Rogers I can honestly only say that i'm not making any judgements just yet. I've seen enough to mean that i still believe in what he is trying to achieve, but i can't honestly say that he definitely WILL achieve this. I don't subscribe to this idea that everything is black and white. Its not as simple as simply being for or against the manager, its not as simple as saying we are a shit team or a great team. Right now we are in transition. We’re not sure what we are going to get out of this season, and we are not sure what we are going to get out of this team. Performance wise we have seen improvements, even if they have not been accompanied by an improvement in points tally. I still support what this manager is trying to achieve, but it is too early to judge how successful we have been, or even can be.
