Liverpool: Forth or 5th

Liverpool’s incredulous rise from a dour position in the table to a mediocre position in the table has been met with much fanfare and positivity from all red corners. This may seem unusual to many outside the club, but for those who know their football, it means an awful lot.

Kenny Dalglish has injected some much demanded optimism in to the club and it seems that with players seemingly queuing outside Media Towers to give feel-good quotes, the vibe inside is just as upbeat.

Liverpool are now within breathing distance of 5th place and with only four games remaining, it may be too late. But I now worry that it’s too simplistic to think ‘that’s it, we’re going to be great next season’.

Tails are well and truly up, even Maxi Rodriquez is in the hat-trick club, but without throwing a damp blanket over it all, regardless of whether we finish 5th or 6th, Liverpool face a huge summer.

Hodgson’s chord was cut just in time, he could’ve pulled Liverpool over the edge of the cliff but the strong arm of The King has hauled us back in the right direction. Seemingly without doing little except changing the mood.

A crossroads looms large on the horizon now, and although I seem to say this every year, the very direction of the club over the next few years could be decided this summer. Comolli has been a man in the shadows since he arrived, which is a good thing, but I hope he’s earning his cash.

We have been linked a few times with St. Etienne players and sometimes I wonder whether it’s jobs for the boys or genuine insight.

As always with these things, time will tell and the best quality a football fan can have is patience.

It seems as though giving Dalglish the job, as is expected, in the summer, will be Liverpool playing their final hand: it’s win or bust. There are genuinely six top four contenders now, which is unprecedented in most leagues, and to be there each season we have to make the right decisions starting with the manager.

If Kenny Dalglish can’t turn us around? Who can? The fan momentum is currently there, the owners seem willing and the majority of the players are on board.

Liverpool don’t need a massive overhaul. Dead wood can be shipped off, but large parts of the squad should remain intact, just to add depth.

To truly throw our hat in the ring for the next five years and beyond, for both Champions League and Premier League contention, then Liverpool need real quality. It doesn’t have to be spectacular, but dependable.

At the moment, and it is hugely unfortunate, two of our most talented players are Agger and Aurelio and both players spend for too much time in the treatment room than on the pitch. While i think Aurelio should be let go in the summer, as was originally planned by Benitez, Agger should be retained.

But to get the best out of talented players who seem injury plagued, a team must have adept replacements. At the moment, Liverpool don’t have this. We have scrappers, fighters, and players with passion who throw themselves into tackles, but if we want to dominate teams, become the ‘Bastion of Invincibility’ as Shankly once dreamed, then our mission this summer should be to spend in the knowledge that Liverpool FC is only as strong as its weakest link.

@onlychrissevers

Andy Carroll and Liverpool's philosophy

The biggest thing in football is money, we all know it. Peter Crouch comes close, Wayne Rooney’s vocabulary comes close, but money is what makes the game go round.

Any owner of a club, such as Mr J W Henry, will want to see returns on their investments. Of course they would, that’s fair enough, but sometimes I do sit and ponder whether money hamstrings football too much.

I’ve often heard it called moneyball, and there’s a lot of truth in this. When an owner invests a lot of money in a player, they expect that player to play, and when that player doesn’t play well, or doesn’t fit a system, then who has the ultimate say?

In a perfect world, the football man does. But as Rafa Benitez found out continually through his career, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you, or you’ll get a slap.

When I watch Andy Carroll play, this quandary always pops into mind. I see the team change, our brainless defenders (Agger and Johnson excluded) see it as an easy way out, and I worry that because he’s the most expensive British player ever, ‘he has to play’.

Now, I know he’s young, and new, and I think he will score a lot of goals for Liverpool, but I would hope that the manager (presumably Dalglish) will have the power and sway to dictate the team’s style on a game-by-game basis.

There will be some games where playing Carroll won’t be as effective. While I am sure he will improve as a player over the next few years, his style of play won’t. He will always be a target man, and not in the Drogba mould, because quite simply he lacks the pace.

Liverpool must concentrate on avoiding building a team solely to suitaro Andy Carroll, as has been mooted, but build a team based on a philosophy of good football, and ensure that Carroll fits that philosophy.

Lots of chit-chat and conjecture has bandied about the airwaves and internet-waves [cit] about buying wingers for Carroll. If that was to be our ‘aim’ then we would be seriously undermining our chances of long-term success. Carroll is still an unknown quantity. He has raw assets that should be exploited, and a good crosser would of course be a great acquisition, but any incoming wingers (Sylvain Marveaux looks set to join) I would hope they have a lot more about them than just being able to stick the ball on Andy Carrol’s head.

My concerns are obviously hypothetical, Liverpool may well have a grand plan for the summer, but as mentioned above, would the sheer price of Carroll have too much influence on the way the team thinks and plays?

Liverpool’s problem isn’t the players, it’s the mentality. Too little movement, not enough imagination. We don’t press high up the pitch like we used to, and if we win the ball in midfield, there’s only usually two people in front of play. To break teams down, you have to be ready to pounce, quickly and ruthlessly.

All of the teams who play on that ‘higher level’, have an amazing fluidity about them that allows interchangeable positions making them a nightmare for defenders. By focusing entirely on Andy Carroll, we allow ourselves to fall into dependency. Everybody will know where Carroll will play, and how we will play to him.

Who knows? Maybe Andy Carroll’s biggest role could be to play the worlds most expensive red herring. By using Carroll not as a goal scorer, but as a goal creator (i.e. making space, runs, dragging defenders away) Liverpool can take advantage of this space.

The biggest trouble Liverpool have had for the last two years is finding players who can create space. We’re too static, and Andy Carroll surely falls into that bracket. But, it can work.

To utilize a player of Carroll’s ability, we need strong runners from midfield and players who know when to go and when to stay, a footballing brain can never be underestimated. Meireles has shown he has the potential to do it, but he can’t be relied upon solely.

Kuyt doesn’t have the legs any more and Suarez is still too early in his career at Liverpool and must be given time. Although his direct style and unpredictable nature make him a handful for any team, I’m sure he will help the ‘dream’ of beautiful football along nicely.

In summary, I hope and expect Andy Carroll to be a success at Liverpool FC. I just hope that Liverpool play to LIVERPOOL’S strengths, and not Andy Carroll’s.

Andy Carroll should be a weapon wielded in a way to allow a warrior to move freely, not a weapon too heavy to be swung, rendering our metaphorical warrior over incumbent.

@onlychrissevers