Out of the Cup.. now for the rampant optimism.

So that's that then... another presumably trophy-less season for Liverpool. If this season doesn't end trophy-less then I will undoubtedly wet myself with joy and the subsequent World Cup will barely register to me as a thing that is happening as I will most likely be in hospital getting my stomach pumped. 

That is one thing I have never done actually.. celebrated Liverpool winning the League by getting hideously drunk (I was a few weeks short of my 14th birthday the last time it happened). But given my usual reaction to any sort of Liverpool victory (or defeat) then I suspect it will be carnage when it eventually happens.

I'm getting off topic ever so slightly.

Defeat to Arsenal on Sunday wasn't great.. I'm not going to go on about the cock-jockey referee because it changes little other than having something to bitch about in defeat which is handy in a way - Arsenal didn't beat us, Howard Webb did etc. - but it achieves little.

Losing yesterday frees up the schedule although it didn't need very much freeing up in fairness.

Sunderland (h) to be rearranged due to FA Cup.

Liverpool now have 12 games left this season. With a bit of luck, 12 increasingly important league games. If we are still playing very important league games in May - well, this boys and girls is progress. 

So how important they are depends obviously on the results - we have 12 games left and a lot of the trickier away matches have already been played.

We're on 53 points so far. In broad terms this means we need 20 points to get in the top 4 - 70 points usually does it, and for the slightly more optimistic among you 30 points and we're going to very much be in the mix for the league.

If we can actually win all our home games - very tricky with City and Chelsea still to come - that is 18 points.

The away games don't look too taxing with all the games to the other sides in the top 6 already having been played. Now this is a pretty thinly veiled dig at Man Utd, but I can't ever remember looking forward to a visit there with such optimism. Our away form is sketchy, but I do think we can gain quite a few points out of that lot. Say win 3, draw 2 and lose 1 of those 6. That's 11 points, added onto my wildly optimistic 18 home points. Well that's 29 - to put us on 82 points for the season.

That's not very far from winning the league.

With City and Chelsea to play, 6 out of 6 at home is probably a stretch.. especially if Chelsea park the bus, but you've got to dream big. If we are actually going to do this thing then we have to win all our home games. 

It's more likely that we'll have a little wobble (possibly another Kolo Toure inspired wobble), but I think third is definitely achievable, which let's not forget is the actual Champions League qualification spot.

I don't fancy an early season qualifier in Fowler knows where with the potential to fuck next season up before it's begun.

And if we can finish in the top three.. well that gives any potential signings less doubt about which competitions they could be playing in next season.

#FACup 5th Round - Arsenal v Liverpool... can we play you every week?

When the 5th round draw was made, I like probably many of you was a little deflated. If I remember rightly we came out of the hat shortly after Man City had drawn Chelsea. One less of those two to worry about is always helpful in the Cup, especially when it means that Mourinho & Co get dumped out of the thing. But then to immediately get drawn away to Arsenal.... well it took the edge off.

If I'm honest I immediately thought that was that.. I didn't hold out much hope for our progression, but then when it comes to Liverpool FC I am usually a pessimist.

However, that was then and this is now. Since we beat Bournemouth, pretty unconvincingly, in the last  round.. well we haven't done bad at all. The Kolo-wobble at West Brom aside, we eviscerated Everton and put in the most astonishing first 20 minutes of football I have ever seen against Arsenal.

Another Kolo-wobble in the week, but more importantly a win this time and suddenly the Cup seems less significant. There was a gap forming between us and the top 3 and it looked as though the season was going to turn into a straight race for fourth with Everton and Spurs.

Four points off the top in February (been a while since we could say that) and we're starting to speculate/fantasise about winning the league again.

Now we have a little break from all that and our attention turns back to the Cup.

As if you needed reminding how great the FA Cup is.

The FA Cup does not hold the pull that it used to.. and this is something that should be looked at. It is entirely due to the Champions League. Finishing fourth is now somehow better than winning a Cup.. and not just a Cup, THE Cup.

Certainly in terms of financial stability and your ability to attract the top signings you need regular Champions League football, but let's for a moment look at our opponents on Sunday.

Arsenal - as the media delights in reminding us - have qualified for the Champions League every year since whenever it was and this is highly impressive (according to Andy Townsend). However, during this long and illustrious history then have reached the final once in 2006 and the best they have managed other than that is the Quarter Finals when they have to eventually play someone who knows what they are doing.

You've gotta love a nice shiny Cup.

Arsenal have also not won anything since they mugged Man Utd in the 2005 FA Cup.. that one was nearly as funny as when we mugged Arsenal in 2001 with a little help from Stephane Henchoz and that incredibly dull chap who does the commentary now on BT Sport.

The point being whilst modern football is increasingly about balance sheets, it shouldn't be.. Football should be about what it has always been about. Winning shiny cups.

So you can compare the two.. Do you want to finish fourth or win the Cup? And from a pragmatic point of view it is more beneficial to finish fourth. But specifically in terms of our season, well let's look at what is achievable.

No.. I'm a little teapot. 

If we can get through this round.. the prospects of this happening have improved after last Saturday. I cannot
imagine the Mertesacker / Koscielny partership has been sleeping too soundly in their presumably separate beds at the prospect of facing the SASASAS on Sunday.

As I mentioned only one of City or Chelsea will progress.. along with presumably the eviscerated Everton and maybe Southampton from the realistic end of the Premier League. It starts to open up doesn't it.

A point that should also be made is that we have benefited from not playing in Europe this season.. and whilst it has helped our focus in the league, form and momentum is not something that you can turn on and off like a tap.

Imagine what a win at the Emirates would do for confidence and morale in a squad that doesn't seem to be too lacking in that department. And I think we can handle the rigours of an extended cup run, after all with a bit of luck we could be talking four games here. If we cannot handle that then we probably aren't going cope too well if we do actually get back in the Champions League next season.

Liverpool v Arsenal - Good job we're not facing Luis Suarez today.

As if we needed any further confirmation, the results of the past weekend have pretty much confirmed what we knew all along.. this season is about one thing and one thing only... Finish fourth.

It got quite excitable for a time when we were still bouncing round with Arsenal at the top of the league just before Christmas but it was never too likely that we'd stay there. Decent, but ultimately fruitless, performances against Man City and Chelsea and the more recent curious West Midlands blind-spot (an odd hangover from last season) has not helped matters.

With Chelsea's surprise win at City a very definite gap has now appeared between the top 3 and the rest - Six points now between us and Chelsea a further two to City at the top.

What the hell was that?

Frankly though I'd have been delighted with being in this position going to February if you'd offered it me at the start of the season. In more recent seasons we've been 15 or so points off the top by now which isn't too clever.

This weekend is going to give us a better idea of where we stand in terms of the battle for fourth. At present we're only two points above Everton, with Spurs a point behind them. Kolo Toure's monumental fuck up against WBA on Sunday really didn't help.

We have the visit of Arsenal to look forward to on Saturday, but rather helpfully Spurs play Everton on Sunday.

Our recent record against Arsenal is not too clever.. the last time we beat them in the league at Anfield was with the help of a Peter Crouch hat-trick (click on the link) in March '07. We beat them in the Champions League at Anfield after that (April '08) but not in the league since. Not too promising really.

We have won at the Emirates since then and how we didn't win there last season was something of a mystery, but we need to improve on this if we are serious about a top four spot. The two games either side of that 2-2 game last season were less than inspiring. Two 2-0 horribly straight-forward defeats in which we never looked liked getting anything.

However most of this recent history was happening during some pretty iffy times for Liverpool and as I said we're getting back up towards the pointy end so I don't think we need to dwell on that too much. We were pretty shit around the whole Hicks / Gillett / Hodgson debacle, now we seem to know what were doing.. a bit more at least.

£40,000,001 - What the actual fuck?

Of course the Arsenal games do have a certain edge to them this season... their frankly laughable pursuit of Luis Suarez didn't help matters. £40,000,001 - I mean seriously - what was that all about?

I think we can probably agree that if Luis Suarez pops up with one of his usual hat-tricks on Saturday then Wenger might start to think that faffing about like that in the transfer market perhaps wasn't a brilliant plan.

It has the makings of a classic.. by which I mean both sides are going to struggle defensively. We didn't really pressure Arsenal at all in the game at the Emirates (not a good sign with the upcoming FA Cup), but at home we have a bit more about us going forward.

Bearing in mind the 6-3 defeat Arsenal suffered at City, well it doesn't sound too much like a water-tight defence. And in Suarez, Sturridge and Coutinho.. well it's not too hard to draw comparisons with City.

Seriously.. he kicked the ball about 6 times that night.

I'm not saying we're going to score six. We might let in three, but if we do there's a fair chance we won't lose. Although another 4-4 might be pushing it. Mertesacker and Koscielny have never really impressed me and if Suarez clicks on Saturday they are in trouble. 




As far as Tottenham v Everton.. well Spurs last home game they lost 5-1 (their 2nd worst home defeat of the season) and Everton lost 4-0 the last time they played away (their worst result of the season, home or away). So maybe they'll both lose on Sunday.. finger crossed.

In the reasonably likely event that this doesn't happen, at least one of them is guaranteed to drop points. Best case scenario Liverpool win and Spurs and Everton get a point each. That'd be us four points clear of fifth... not too shabby compared with recent seasons.

Now just comes the tricky bit of getting the points.

Steven Gerrard - Water Carrier?

Gerrard converts a "Uruguayan" penalty.

Now I appreciate that quoting Eric Cantona might not go down too well, but with Brendan Rodgers playing Steven Gerrard in a deeper role in recent games, it looks like that might be the way things are going.

So far he seems to be struggling. Liverpool were over-run in the first half yesterday and I don't think it's a coincidence that Liverpool's best period during the match came with the introduction of Lucas at half-time. That he was only on the pitch for 20 minutes was one of the factors behind us not winning the game in the end. In the end another soft-ish penalty helped us out.

In modern football, you need a holding midfielder. A player that makes the rest of the team tick. Lucas can wobble on occasion, but when he's on form he is excellent at this job.

You almost don't really notice how much they actually do when they are playing, but it's when they aren't and it all turns to shit that you realise that they are what hold's it all together. Didi Hamann was a good example of
this.. didn't seem to do all that much. Win the ball, pass it 6 yards.. well that's pretty much it. But when they aren't there and the opposition is strolling through your midfield at will (1st half yesterday) that's when the alarm bell's start ringing. Gerrard isn't immediately suited to this role (1st half yesterday). He has spent his career on the front foot. He's been the player the "water-carrier" looks to to make something happen.

Gerrard is one of the best players of his generation. I have often made the pub argument that a keeper plus 10 Steven Gerrard's would beat a keeper plus 10 anyone else's. Certainly in his prime that was true. But he isn't in his prime anymore. He's 34 now. If he's going to stay playing regularly then he is going to be less dynamic and the deeper midfield role is an obvious way to prolong his career.

However, so far it doesn't look like he's very good at it. This frankly comes as something as a surprise. In the last two games where he's been asked to play in this role Liverpool have conceded 5 goals and on reflection getting 4 points out of 2 games when you let in that many isn't too bad.

Perhaps getting him used to the role whilst we've still got Luis Suarez making things a little easier isn't such a bad idea. You can get away with letting a few in if you've got the best striker on the planet demolishing teams at the other end.

However, whilst that might work more often than not, you don't win trophies like that. Just ask Kevin Keegan. If your plan is just to outscore the opposition then ultimately you will fail. It makes for entertaining football, if your winning (or losing) every game 4-3, but when it get's to the pointy end of the season you will come up against teams who know what they are doing, who can defend properly and they will pick you off.

You don't win games by outscoring the opposition, you win games (and more accurately trophies and titles) by controlling games.

And this is where your water carriers come in.

Is Steven Gerrard good enough to play in this role? Certainly, although he's taking some getting used to it.

Do we have an effective alternative? Not really. Beyond Lucas, we don't have anyone who is going to play there long term.

So what is the solution? Persist with Gerrard and hope he get's the hang of it? We might not have a choice depending on the extent of Lucas' injury. If the rumours of him being out for the season are to be believed then we only really have one option.

We must strengthen the squad in the next couple of weeks. We were in need of back-up in this area anyway and if Lucas is out then this becomes vital.

We do not have enough strength in depth. Part of the problem in recent years has been employing players in that role who aren't familiar with it when Lucas has been injured. Charlie Adam being the prime example of this - I mean seriously, he has the tackling ability of Paul Scholes, although not quite any other Paul Scholes abilities which is probably why he is at Stoke now.

We're conceding too many goals and part of the problem for this is in the midfield. When Arsene Wenger found he had this problem he signed Patrick Viera and Emmanuel Petit and that seemed to work out quite well for them.

This shouldn't be too difficult. Signing a player of Vieira's standard is admittedly unlikey, but it's not like we need to sign a goal-scorer. We have the bases covered on that score.

There are rumours Yann M'Vila, but the asking price seems to be the sticking point, as it usually is with these things. I don't know too much about him, but signing a bit of muscle for the midfield shouldn't be too taxing and if Lucas is out and Gerrard effectively out of position, they need for new blood is vital.

Basically we need to sign a beast to strengthen things up a bit - that shouldn't be too much to ask.