David Catan looks to life at Liverpool after Luis Suarez‘s departure, calling for a shift in the system to continue the exciting and attractive progress made last season.
All things must pass. Good and bad. Luis Suarez’ time at Liverpool has provided plenty moments of both.
Many are bemoaning the lack of ambition shown by the club in letting him go, but in reality even the men who signed him in the first place knew it was only a matter of time, with Damien Comolli recently admitting, “[Suarez] told me that his dream is to play in Spain at one point in his career”.
Considering the family ties and the regard with which most of Latin America holds the big two in Spain, this is hardly surprising.
In keeping him for an extra year, cheekily ignoring a release clause in his previous contract, the club have managed to make remarkable progress in a season, with a return to Champions’ League football and a far superior price on the striker’s head the most tangible improvements from their position last Summer.
Whether or not European football would have been achieved without the forward’s goals is barely even debatable. He was the PFA Player of the Year for a reason.
Liverpool were far less of a one man team than some suggest, and less absolutely reliant on their main man than Spurs were in the previous season, as shown by their higher average goals per game for (1.85 vs 1.58) and points won (2 vs 1.48) without Suarez than with him since he arrived at the club.
This is a highly functioning attacking team which created a lot of chances for their strikers, Sturridge’s goal haul being only second in the league to Suarez himself testifies to that point.
So, rather than dwell on why he wants to go or how we could have kept him, wouldn’t it be better to count our blessings for having had one of the best players in the world help us bring those incomparable European nights back to Anfield.
It’s sad that he won’t be there to witness them, but that genuinely is his loss.
Will Liverpool suffer without Suarez next season? Undoubtedly. I personally think it would be unreasonable to expect a title challenge, it might happen but should not be expected as a given.
Man United will be a lot stronger with Louis Van Gaal at the helm, and Chelsea have Jose Mourinho in his second season of his second stint, with Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas on board.
Arsenal with Alexis Sanchez doesn’t look too shabby a proposition, either. Fourth place and getting out of the group stages of the CL (especially so we don’t have to play in the Europa) would be a great result.
There is no replacement for Suarez. No one should come in with that expectation placed on them. As much as the management speak is cringeworthy, Brendan Rodgers’ notion of a “project” is pretty on the mark.
The expectation should be that, given time, Rodgers should be building a team that will never be overly reliant on one player.
If Liverpool could cope with losing Ian Rush after a 30 goal season, then they should be able to manage now. The squad needs to have the depth to change players as necessary without a noticeable dip in quality.
We may not have Suarez next year, but if we can have a subs bench with better attacking options than Iago Aspas then they could definitely contribute a few points when margins are tight at the end of games.
Towards the very end of the season, when Suarez himself was having a dip in his sensational form, the lack of options from the bench was near crippling. I would rather have Rickie Lambert coming on than that, any day…
Given that Daniel Sturridge was the second highest scorer in the Premier League last season, and that the diamond 4-4-2 was only introduced to accommodate two strikers in great form, I am guessing Rodgers will return to a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 formation with Sturridge as the main man up top, and deservedly so.
Philippe Coutinho and Sturridge link up really well together and I could see this being the partnership around which the attack revolves for years to come; with Coutinho playing as a number 10 and Raheem Sterling/Adam Lallana either side and interchanging fluidly.
Jordan Henderson can also do a job in any of the five midfield positions and hopefully we’ll get someone else by the start of the season. Yes, the attacking midfielders will have to chip in with more goals but this isn’t beyond reasonable to expect from Coutinho and Sterling, both have shown an eye for goal at times and have just perhaps lacked the cool heads to score more often.
This is something that will come with another year of Premier League football, being a year older, and the confidence of the previous campaign under their belts.
This gives the team one big advantage in that there will be a bit more cover for the back four. Steven Gerrard‘s distribution reminded me of Xabi Alonso at times last season, spreading the ball about beautifully, but the engine isn’t there to patrol the perimeter of the defence like the bulldog Javier Mascherano used to.
He tended to drop back between the centre backs rather than move left or right to allow the the full backs to bomb on. The centre backs would then be spread wider and out of their comfort zone. It takes longer to adjust back to your ideal defensive formation from this point.
Emre Can/Henderson/Lucas Leiva will hopefully fulfil this role next season. Can certainly seems to have a hell of an engine, and is probably Rodgers long term hope for the role of destroyer, though is a little ill disciplined, positionally, and might take time to learn the ropes in England.
We need someone to partner Mamadou Sakho (who’s stats prove him to be much better than he gets credit for because he has the same gait as Traore and the horrified memories live long) in the long term.
Whatever about the price, all footballers are overpriced these days, Dejan Lovren is a very talented centre-back and with two players in their mid-20s at the centre of defence we would potentially have a partnership that could last a decade.
Jon Flanagan deserves the right back berth after an excellent season filling in on the left and hopefully a signing will be made to fill that void soon.
Things are better than they have been in a long time at Anfield, and though we are losing one of the best players in the game we are in a far better position to cope with it than this time last year.
The biggest thing I hope for is that the entertaining style of football Liverpool played last season continues. I exclaimed with unfettered joy at the television more last year than in the previous five seasons combined. More entertainment, please.
More adventurous, swashbuckling, expansive football. More of that beautiful arrogance that Rodgers speaks of wanting from his players. That’s why I watch football. That’s why I fell in love with Liverpool.
Good luck to Suarez, I actually reckon he has the ability and adaptability to fit in around Lionel Messi and Neymar and be a hit for Barca, but bloody hell do they need some defenders!
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