Liverpool Open Blandly

Hello and welcome to another season of Liverpool football.  The beginning of a season is always an exciting time.  Your prospects for a great season will never be higher, unless you raise the trophy at the end.  Hope springs eternal and fans are abuzz about how each new signing will affect the team for good or bad.  That same emotion was going through myself and all Liverpool supporters prior to the season's opening contest against Stoke City.

Then came the game.  There is still hope for the season.  There are still things to be looking forward to.  However, as individual games go, it was about as bland as it could get.  Both squads threw a few attacks forward here or there, but to little effect.  Simon Mingolet was pressured more out of the two goalkeepers in the first half, but more often than not it was due to his own defenders' bunggling attempts at back passes.

Liverpool came out in the opening moments of the contest looking very bright and positive.  The passes were crisp and connected well.  It really looked like they would strike early and put the ghosts of last season's loss at the Britannia behind them.  However, shots were placed right into defenders and you could see that even with the upgrade in talent, the players are still feeling each other out.

That was also the theme for most of this contest for both sides.  As mentioned, there was the brief foray into the attacking areas for both the Livebirds and the Potters.  Much of the contest was spent in the midfield though, with both teams stringing together decent attacking pushes only to see it peter out with an errant pass (more often than not, directly to the opposition).  A lot of it can be chalked up to an opening season game coming earlier in the calendar than usual and summer signings still finding their bearings within each club.

Both squads saw good moments from their higher profile additions.  Christian Benteke moved around very well and was strong on the ball, though he will have to find better shooting angles as the season progresses or he may be the most blocked striker in the league.  Similarly, Ibrahim Afellay looked very positive for Stoke as well.  He was fearless in attack and more than willing to take on the Liverpool defense.  Ultimately though, he was unable to create enough for his team to score.

For the Reds, if you look at each individual, nothing overly poor stood out.  Dejan Lovren still seems to be finding his sea legs, but was strong in his challenges.  He, like just about every Liverpool centerback, will just never be anyone the supporters are comfortable with having the ball at their feet.  The same can be said of Skrtel.  The man plays hard and goes into every challenge hard.  But he makes a lot of mistakes and against higher competition, Liverpool often pay for it.  The back four as a whole looked more solid than in seasons past, however the youth of Gomez will create some holes for other teams to exploit as more film is seen on him.

Jordan Ibe continued to impress, though nothing he did ended up on the score sheet.  While, in all honesty, his skill set is quite different to Raheem Sterling, Ibe looks more in control and comfortable.  Sterling, for all his talents, always looked just a bit reckless like a runaway train.  Ibe keeps the ball closer, seems to be wiser in the challenges he takes on and has better physical attributes in terms of size.  For all we know, Sterling may turn out to be the promised wunderkind, but for now, LFC seem to have made the smart choice.

James Milner was a bit of a disappointment as he seemed to disappear for long stretches in the match, but he was never going to light the world on fire.  He was brought in to help solidify the midfield and that's not always going to mean flying forward.  Similarly, Firmino was a bit lackluster in his first action in a Liverpool shirt, but in his defense, he missed some of the preseason tour with the club and has not had much time to gel with his new team or surroundings.

Despite the overall negative spin put on some of what transpired during the game, the big thing is the result and Liverpool got what they had to get - three points.  It wasn't pretty, it wasn't flashy.  It may have put some to sleep at stages of the game.  But, as the broadcasters said in the postmatch commentary - weeks from now, nobody will care.  All that will matter is the club won and got a good spring board to start the year.

Given the difficult schedule, chalk full of road matches, to start the season, three points were needed despite claims that a draw would have been sufficient.  A match against Bournemouth could potentially iron out a few more kinks before the big boys arrive across the pitch, but again results are more important to start the year than true form.  Look at Manchester United last season.  They were not great in individual games, but did enough to get results and are now back in Champions League.  Similarly, Liverpool got off to a good start, in terms of results, two years ago and gained a top four position because of it.  Conversely, a poor start to last season doomed them come the following May.

As fans we always want the beautiful game.  We want scoring and flowing football.  We marvel at the Brazils and Hollands of the world.  But when it comes to the grind of a club season, all that matters are the results.  If it meant winning the league, supporters would take ugly win after ugly win.  Until the talents can gel, that is what Liverpool must focus on.  Get the win.  The how is unimportant.

Walk On

Random Thoughts:

- I like Adam Lallana the person (from what I can see from afar) and I like his talents.  However, he cannot be the long term starter.  A front three of Benteke, Firmino and Coutinho is much more of a threat for the rest of the season.  As long as this is just a short period to allow the Brazilian to adjust, then fine.

- Speaking of Lallana, why in the world is he always up front?  Maybe I completely misread his skills, but he seems better suited toward a more midfield role than Coutinho does.  Although the true lineup had Coutinho further forward, I was not pleased at all when a proposed lineup had Lallana as part of the attacking trio and Coutinho in basically a wingback role.

- This team will not score nearly as many goals.  They may not win nearly as many games.  However, despite the blandness of this particular contest, I saw brief glimpses of the kind of football that made the team so fun to watch in their second place finish two seasons ago.  A healthy Sturridge, if there is such a thing, could really give this team a ton of attacking options and looks for the opposition.

- It was nice to see the team get the win, but also to see Brendan Rodgers get a bit of positive buzz.  For good or bad, I seem doomed to be a supporter of his until the day he is no longer the boss of Liverpool.  Thus, I am always glad for him and the club when good things come, whether by luck or design.

- Lastly, some may wonder how I could not mention Coutinho's goal in the article proper.  Well, chalk that up to first game jitters for me too.  That and being too lazy to find a good place to slip in a paragraph about it.  That said, it was a fantastic goal but in a sad way what we have come to expect from him.  He is one of those players who drives fans crazy because he will blast shots into defenders or five yards over goal time after time.  Then, he will strike it sweetly like he did on the goal against Stoke and you see all the talent and promise meld together.  If he ever finds a bit more consistency, he could be one of the best in the league.