LIVERPOOL FINALLY HITTING THEIR STRIDE

I remember prior to the start of the current Barclays Premier League season many, perhaps even most of the most respected pundits were asked whether Manchester United would finish top 4 in the league over Liverpool. Both teams were and still are in transition. Manchester United had only a few months prior fired the unfortunate David Moyes and had appointed Ryan Giggs interim manager who guided the team to seventh in the league at the end of the season.

During the summer they hired Dutch coach Louis van Gaal, who came with a highly-regarded reputation. The Dutch genius had won the Champions League with Ajax, won La Liga titles with Barcelona, and won the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich. The club also tapped into their massive piggy bank to acquire the supposedly world class Radamel Falcoa, Angel Di Maria, Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, and Daley Blind among others.

Liverpool, who just missed out on winning their first league title in a quarter century, by contrast brought in a truckload of developing players – Emre Chan,  Javier Manquillo, Alberto Moreno, and Lazar Markovic, as well as a few decent ones like Adam Lallana, and Dejan Lovren. The team had also just lost the enigmatic but prolific striker Luis Suarez and early in lost their second leading striker Daniel Sturridge to injury.

On paper United had the better of things.

For the first few months, the pundits looked to be right on the money. Liverpool struggled as the new young developing players tried to find the cohesion, so did United as that team tried to get used to van Gaal’s genius. United climbed to as high as third in the league while Liverpool wallowed in mid-table with more than 100 million Pounds of talent looking like school boys playing against Real Madrid. Well, they actually did.

However, over the past two months or so things have began to change a little. Cracks have begun to emerge in United’s season while Liverpool have gone nine games without defeat, accumulating 21 off a possible 27 points. They have been finding ways to score without Suarez and Sturridge but what is even better is that they have found a way to stop conceding goals. Following their 2-0 triumph over Southampton on Sunday Liverpool has now kept five clean sheets away from home, a standard not achieved since the mid-1980s. Overall, the team has stopped leaking goals. Last week’s two goals conceded in the win over Tottenham were the first conceded in open play since January.

Liverpool are now three points from third and two behind the mighty United who they play in a couple weeks’ time. United won the first encounter this season in a match that objective observers conceded was a lucky win for Liverpool’s neighbours. I suspect that the outcome might be different when the teams meet next at Anfield.

Going back to the argument about who will finish in the top 4, since Rodgers took over at Liverpool, the stretch from January to May have been the best periods for the team. In his first season as manager, Rodgers’ team suffered 11 losses in their last 19 games, but then it was still Kenny Dalglish’s team. The following season, Liverpool had 10 wins, six draws and three losses in their last half of the season. Last year, it was 15 wins, three draws and one loss that took them to second place in the league.

Liverpool is the only unbeaten team in the premier league in 2015. It would be foolhardy to believe they will end the season without losing another match in the premier league but when you consider how the team has improved defensively and the fact that Sturridge is back and the team confidence is high, Liverpool could be the most dangerous team in the BPL at this point of the season.

Stern tests await in the form of Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal, even United but on current form and the seasonal trends, I am sure those pundits who picked United to finish ahead of Liverpool must be worried about their predictions holding because while one Red team is slipping down the table following that loss to Swansea on the weekend, the other Red is climbing steadily upwards.