If we're going by last season where we relied heavily on the strikers, then there is a lot of pressure on Sturridge to replicate his form at the very least, and worryingly, we don't have time to let Lambert 'bed in'. However, I don't expect Lambert to go firing all cylinders immediately and neither do I think Borini will if he stays. Aside from Sturridge, all the other strikers really have to press on but I doubt it.
If Borini stays, it's a far bigger season for him than any other striker. I've been willing to give him his chance, but now he must take it or else he will be considered a failure. He's got a great shot on him, but I'd love to see him more involved in games, and at times in Rodgers' first season, the game seemed to pass him by a lot of the time. No excuse now for that happening.
The departure of Suarez does evidently seem to be putting a lot of strikers under pressure at the club but perhaps we're being a little misguided in our assumptions about the state of the forwards, because I can't see Brendan applying the same tactics from last year because they were designed to get the best out of Suarez. Now that we don't have him, he'll tell the midfielders to get more goals this year.
We'll see more forward runs from the likes of Henderson and co as they strive to make up for the absence of Suarez, so arguably the pressure is on the midfielders as much as the strikers. That said, with more midfielders bombing forward, I hope this doesn't result in even more defensive fallibilities but with the introduction of Can, Lovren and Moreno (hopefully) along with the continued improvement of the likes of Flanagan, hopefully this makes up for the slack defence of last season - well, it has to or we are in trouble.
That said, I have full faith in Brendan to tweak things accordingly. As for the media and ex-pundits, those of most enlightened minds such as the wise Alan Shearer, the philosophical Stan Collymore and the sharp wit that is Phil Neville seem to think we'll struggle. But they seem to forget that even in the absence of European football, we suffered some bad injuries (or bans...) to all our key players at some stage last year. And we didn't do too badly in such times of panic now did we. Rodgers proved himself to be the most adept of managers in improvising a team in the wake of injuries, and the loss of Suarez won't deter him for sure.
But, perhaps I should be listening to the English media and the ex-pundits, because as we all know, English football culture is well known across the globe for it's high minded, in depth and cerebral intellectual discussions.......
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