Alex Dunn picks the bones from Liverpool's defeat to Aston Villa and urges against overreaction.
Alex Dunn picks the bones from Liverpool's defeat to Aston Villa
When Rafa Benitez awoke from his disrupted slumber this morning it's unlikely his first thought would have been the fables of Aesop but, as he has with Sotirios Kyrgiakos, he could do worse than go Greek.
Across the North West, in the land of Terry Christian and Scouse-baiters aplenty, the laughter that piqued when Steven Gerrard dumped Nigel Reo-Coker in the penalty area was silenced by a thick Govan voice from the back of the room that growled 'Never forget the story of the tortoise and the hare'. The works of Aesop are well thumbed at Old Trafford.
Traditionally it is Manchester United that are slow starters but after Monday night's Anfield aberration, Liverpool are staring down the barrel of a gun that reads two defeats from three games. Benitez was certainly smoking on the touchline as he went all continental after Aston Villa's third goal with a magnificent 'Whadda Mistaka Da Maka' hand-wringing gesture.
That Liverpool had previously gone 32 home matches without defeat should perhaps have granted them a little leniency, but in an age of instant gratification, where a trip to the bathroom is not complete without a twitter to accompany it, it seems every result is debated until it is magnetised out of all proportion.
Talk of Liverpool being out of the title race (a fine price at 8/1) is premature to the point of lunacy but that should not disguise what has been a troubled beginning on Merseyside. After the game Benitez called for his senior stars to take more responsibility and in doing so he has at least taken the spotlight off those players currently suffering a crisis of confidence.
Weakest link
There is an argument that you are only as strong as your weakest link but when you're working under a board that has no intention to release significant funds for replacements, allowing Anne Robinson free rein on the likes of Lucas, Ryan Babel and Andrey Voronin would benefit only Liverpool's title rivals. Benitez is right to apportion blame, if that's the right word, on those with the broadest shoulders and will look for the spine of his side to stand up, be counted and take 12 points from their next four games against Bolton, Burnley, West Ham and Hull City.
A 3-1 defeat to a Villa side that had won only twice in 18 competitive matches (Newcastle & Hull) is not a good result whichever way you cut it. Brad Friedel was excellent against the club that must regret the day they let him leave for nothing in 2000, but this was not a Banks v Brazil performance.
Xabi Alonso's departure cannot be underestimated. As the club's most consistent player last season the Spaniard was a metronome; the pulse, the beat from which the rest of his team-mates worked from. If Gerrard is Liverpool's heartbeat, Alonso ensured its good health by guaranteeing constant circulation. Liverpool look clotted in his absence.
All too often on Monday night Gerrard, employed as a second striker, left Torres isolated as he reverted back to his natural game in hunting for the ball. There was no need for Gerrard to take possession on the halfway line last season. That was Alonso's territory. Against Villa he was getting the ball from Jamie Carragher and co in an attempt to spark things from deep. An admirable quality but when Gerrard goes all Roy Race the rhythm of the side is disrupted and becomes all too predictable. If you can stop Gerrard, you stop Liverpool.
A sizeable proportion of the fee recouped by Alonso's move to Real Madrid has been spent on Roma's Alberto Aquilani but in his own words, he's nothing like the man he is replacing. And he's injured. Although the Italian has more pace than Alonso, it's the yard in the head that makes his Spanish counterpart a midfield master. Alonso can pass the ball quicker than any rival can run with it.
Missing link
If in midfield Liverpool looked ponderous as Javier Macherano and Lucas out-crabbed each other in their passing, at the back the debate over zonal versus man-to-man marking reared its head when Curtis Davies stole in at the near post to double Villa's lead from a corner. Again, though, it would be an overreaction, at least premature, to say there are real problems in Liverpool's backline. It's easy to lampoon Benitez's employment of zonal marking in defeat, but there has been precious little talk of its respective merits when numerous clean sheets have been kept over the past few seasons.
While Benitez is right to protect those out-of-sorts from further public scrutiny, it would be remiss, as a neutral, not to ponder over a transfer policy that has left Liverpool dreadfully shy of quality back-up in the final third. Glen Johnson has been the club's best player so far this season and adds a buccaneering verve that the perfectly adequate but more staid Alvaro Arbeloa did not last term, but when you are working on a limited budget, is it not foolhardy to put all your eggs in a basket marked 'right-back'? Liverpool went as close to the title last year as they have done since they last won it in 1990 but would they not have gone even closer had they not spent the whole of the campaign with only one senior striker?
Babel, for all his protestations to the contrary, is not a centre-forward, while David N'Gog and Krisztian Nemeth have potential but are far too raw to be relied on regularly. Voronin claims he was banging them in at Hertha Berlin last season but I watched The Wrestler on
Sky Box Office the other night and I swear I've never seen him and Mickey Rourke in the same room.
Apologies if you've not seen the film but the Ukrainian carries the same hangdog, beaten expression (and hair) as the film's protagonist, who spends the duration of the feature lamenting what might have been. I keep expecting to see Voronin working the cheese counter at my local Asda. Should Torres pick up an injury, as he did last season, it will be a case of shoe-horning Dirk Kuyt into a position he no longer calls home.
Liverpool's poor start has been amplified by the success enjoyed by both Tottenham and Manchester City. Both clubs are cash-rich and have the type of depth to their squads that Benitez, hampered as he is in a financial straightjacket, can only aspire to. Spurs, who went top of the table with a win at West Ham on Sunday, could have fielded an alternative side that reads: Gomes, Hutton, Woodgate, Dawson, Chimbonda, Bentley, O'Hara, Jenas, Bale, Crouch, Pavlyuchenko. Whether Liverpool's, or for that matter Manchester United's, respective second string looks as healthy is a matter of some conjecture.
The picture being painted may be bleaker than the imagination of Edvard Munch, but that's because the bones have been picked from Monday night's carcass only. Come Saturday afternoon, if Bolton are as expected dispensed, thoughts of throwing oneself in the Mersey will seem foolish.
Only jump if you're overtaken by a tortoise. I wouldn't worry about the hare.
