Still Citeh's to Lose

Brendan Rodgers. There he is, on the touchline, a massive bonce on a stocky little body, like an adult Charlie Brown, only with a lot more hair and self-confidence. Beaming away, he is. A man with a plan, and the plan is working. The polar opposite of David Moyes, in fact.


But things didn't start this brightly for Bren. Phone-ins were full of mournful Scouse voices this time last year, as Rodgers attempted to reorder the way his team plays. All right, there weren't exactly small planes flying over the ground (numpties!) but there was discontent. They didn't make the Europa League. Luis Suarez auditioned for the lead in the next Hannibal film and the rest of the team spent the season hitting post and bar more often that an inebriate Royal Mail employee.


So what's changed? Well, a hell of a lot. Not least the fact that not making the Europa League was a huge plus! (Man U and Everton take note! Maybe Sherwood has been drafted in at Spurs to avoid such inconveniences.).


More than anything, though, Rodgers has developed a squad which can alter its formation and still perform at a high level - and that includes several English players, too. That's right. Brainless automatons that have spent their lives simply adhering to a positional discipline and learning how to keep going at 90 mph for 90 minutes have been entrusted with taking on board more than one idea. Sturridge, Sterling, Henderson... all seem to be able to cope with the expectation of not having to play exactly the same way each week.


Roy Hodgson won't know what to make of this when the lot of them show up at training and asks him what the point of 4-4-2 is again.


Equally radical is the fact that Rodgers plays to his players strengths. Sterling roaming in the hole, or chopping and changing position with Sturridge and Suarez has worked beautifully, not least because the lad is more slippery than a greased eel in a bubble bath.


If you take his opposite number, the temporary boss of Tottenham Hotspur, Tim Sherwood, or indeed Moyes, you'll see how this apparently obvious policy is not always adhered to by Rodgers' contemporaries. Christian Eriksson on the left wing, anyone? Juan Mata wide right? Kyle Naughton anywhere near a first-team squad?


As someone who wasn't a rocket scientist once said 'It's not rocket science'. Plaudits have rained down on the eminently placid but lethal Suarez. That old crate of horseshit about nasty players needed to keep a healthy dose of malice or they'll lose something from their game doesn't seem to be true in his case, does it? I've never quite understood why utterly losing it once every five games is good for anyone.


But most of the superlatives are being reserved for the skipper Steven Gerrard with many old Anfielders unable to contain the warmth of their ejaculations. There's a certain late middle-age whimsy at work here. Gerrard represents that bit of we ageing souls that can do a good 40-odd keepy-uppies in the backyard and tell ourselves that we've still got it.


Gerrard is being touted as an English Pirlo now. Sitting in the pocket, a football-playing Joe Montana, a brandy in one hand and a fag in the other, absent-mindedly delivering forty-yard laser-guided missiles to the pacey front four to feed off.


Well he's not quite Pirlo, but he can still trot up to blast a free-kick in, roll in more than the odd penalty and you have to say he fits this new armchair as snugly as any man that ever sat anywhere. Liverpool are closer to the title now than ever they were under the stuffed-shirted dweeb that was Benitez - but then Rafa liked to use Gerrard as a right-winger whenever he could. The dolt.


But can this team hold it together til the season's end? And more than that, are they capable of turning over Citeh and/or Chelsea at home? Wonderfully, Rodgers managed to insist his team was taking the run-in one game at a time, adding that the next one was Manchester City when it is in fact West Ham away - all of which rather suggest the manager is getting ahead of himself a little.


As Palace proved on Saturday there are no gimmes in this league this season. (And there's four letters that make a fan happy - JT OG). Indeed you can't even take victory for granted if you've just taken the lead with 30 seconds to go, can you Baggies?


Spurs and Newcastle are losing the plot in rather similar ways to their gaffing gaffers. Sunderland's games in hand look meaningless, the way they're playing. Norwich and Hull are doing the two-forward three back relegation hustle and frankly it's like trying to predict how many roads a man must walk down before you can call him a man.


There are many reasons why it would be good for Liverpool to win the trophy this year: They're very entertaining; they don't quite have the financial clout of their two biggest rivals; and it's 25 years since Hillsborough - and a title would seem very appropriate this year.


Such sentiments would not deter Mourinho, whose trips to Anfield are still haunted by the Ghost Goal. Nor will Man City need to worry about working their way past the porous 'Pool back four. Then again Rodgers's S & S will be more than happy to be up against one of Lescott or Demichelis. I predict a 3-3. But I also can't help thinking Citeh will nick it in the end.