Saturday 4 April 2015 21:05, UK
Liverpool's 4-1 reverse at Arsenal in the early kick-off on Saturday made it back-to-back Premier League defeats for the Reds. Matt Westby examines the issues facing the Liverpool manager...
Brendan Rodgers may well have thought Raheem Sterling’s contract was the worst of his worries when he walked into the Emirates Stadium on Saturday but the 90 minutes that followed offered sobering proof that he has more immediate concerns to deal with.
His Liverpool team struggled in almost every area of the pitch and a 4-1 thumping at the hands of a confident and free-flowing Arsenal was a fair reflection of a one-sided match.
For what it’s worth, Sterling was arguably their best performer, twice going close to opening the scoring in the first half and then winning the penalty that Jordan Henderson converted 14 minutes from time when the game was already lost.
Philippe Coutinho also had his moments, but otherwise this was back to the Liverpool of the first half of the season: defensively porous, devoid of creativity in midfield and seemingly ill-fitted to the three-at-the-back system that Rodgers now favours.
The defending was particularly surprising given the team's form in 2015. Anyone who thought Phil Jones being skinned by Giorgio Chiellini in England’s friendly with Italy last Tuesday was bad might need to cover their eyes when watching Alberto Moreno and then Joe Allen’s pitiful attempts to block Hector Bellerin on his way to giving Arsenal the lead.
The way in which Moreno allowed himself to be side-stepped by his fellow Spaniard will have alarmed Liverpool supporters and the fact that Allen also failed to defend the space Bellerin was attacking was equally poor.
A similar thing happened for the fourth goal from Olivier Giroud, which admittedly came when Liverpool were stretched and a man down, but it was still far too easy for the Frenchman to sell a dummy to Kolo Toure and curl home a fine strike.
Rodgers may point out that Martin Skrtel, arguably Liverpool’s best and most consistent defender this season, was suspended and had been replaced by Toure, who was starting for the first time since New Year’s Day. However, strength in depth is a core facet of top-four teams and, on this showing, Liverpool's defence remains a cause for concern. The fact they have conceded more goals than any other side in the current top six highlights the weakness.
While poor defending was to blame for the first and fourth Arsenal goals, responsibility for the second and third fell with goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.
The Belgian has been in good form since returning to the side after being dropped earlier in the season but, irrespective of how well-struck Mesut Ozil’s free-kick was to make it 2-0, he should not have conceded in the corner he was supposed to be covering.
That he then compounded the error by allowing Alexis Sanchez’s fierce strike to flash straight over his head and make the score 3-0 merely underlined that the search for a new No 1 at Anfield might not have been ended by his brief renaissance.
In midfield, the contrast between the two teams was stark. While Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey were routinely spraying passes, setting up attacks and surging forward safe in the knowledge that Francis Coquelin was holding fort behind, Liverpool’s central trio of Lucas, Henderson and Allen were outcompeted, too detached from the strikers and lacked the creativity their opponents showed in abundance.
Liverpool's formation, meanwhile, which had been a unilateral success story before Louis van Gaal found a way to beat it with Manchester United prior to the international break, also came unstuck again at the Emirates. Wing-backs Moreno and Lazar Markovic were too busy defending to have any effect going forward and inadequate individual performances undermined it in central areas.
But perhaps the biggest worry of all for Rodgers is that Liverpool now find themselves seven points adrift of the top-four place they need to qualify for next season's Champions League. If they can address that, by fixing the failures they showed against Arsenal, then Sterling's contract might just take care of itself. Time, however, is running out.
