TOMKINS: TIME TO TIP THE BALANCE
Paul Tomkins 07 April 2008
While Liverpool still struggle against Manchester United, five drawn games against Arsenal and Chelsea suggest a parity between the chasing pack.
Liverpool have a slight advantage in the second leg against Arsenal, but it's fragile in these situations. We all remember 1989, and how Liverpool were caught in two minds about how to approach the game, needing only a 1-0 win to clinch the league title. And I struggle to see Liverpool keeping a clean sheet against this Arsenal side; they just seem to score whenever they play. But equally, at home in Europe, when the crowd is buzzing, Liverpool rarely fail.
Liverpool clearly need to improve their set-piece defending. Andy Gray still laughably mocks zonal marking, doing so again last week because Arsenal scored from a corner, and also because the Reds have shipped goals from a few of those of late. But in the same match Arsenal left Torres, Skrtel and Hyypia totally unmarked on three separate occasions. Where was the criticism of managers who opt for man-marking?
This season I've seen Man United's man-marking cost them two goals in one match at West Ham, while Chelsea conceded four goals from set-pieces in two games recently due to shoddy man-marking.
It seems that more and more goals are coming from set-pieces throughout the country, and while Liverpool are losing far more than in the previous two seasons, you don't abandon a system that has done so well for you for such a long period of time. It seems an issue with confidence as much as anything, as players get nervy when they concede a certain type of goal and the situation arises again.

Short of an emphatic win at the Emirates, I'm not sure what result I would have wanted going into the second game. Any time you are a favourite without a great advantage in the scoreline it gets harder; it's yours to lose. The away goal was important, but a 1-1 draw in the second leg and suddenly Arsenal have a further 30 minutes where the away goal rule still applies.
Including last season's League Cup game as some kind of marker of Arsenal's ability to get a result at Anfield, as some have done, is ludicrous. For a start, it was mostly reserves, and eight of Liverpool's starting XI are no longer at the club (although Danny Guthrie is only on loan). Arsenal's hero, Julio Baptiste, has also moved on.
Which leaves two contests to take seriously from last term, and as well as Arsenal winning 3-1 in the FA Cup they lost 4-1 in the league. Admittedly that was a pretty heartless side, but even so, they were despatched with consummate ease. Should he get on as a sub, as he did in the league game earlier this season (when both Torres and Alonso were injured), Peter Crouch will still feel the confidence of that inspired hat-trick, and now another fine strike, this time at the Emirates.
But as highly as I rate Crouch, it's hard to argue for his inclusion from the start with the way the team is performing, and the way Gerrard is linking with Torres, as well as the midfield behind him. The balance looks right. In this role, Gerrard is less involved in the play, and at times he can be isolated. Against better teams it's inevitable that he will see less of the ball. But the point is what he does when he is involved.
Still, it makes me laugh that it was Gerrard who ‘inevitably' got Liverpool back into the game last week; had it been Torres, it would ‘inevitably' have been the Spaniard instead. Meanwhile, as great as Gerrard's play was, if Babel or Kuyt had produced such a run but Gerrard scored, Gerrard would have been the ‘saviour', not the person who created it. So Gerrard should share the credit with Kuyt, who backed up my constant assertions that he gets into good positions when coming infield. At the other end of the pitch, Eboue didn't have a clue how to do the same.
And even when it is Torres and Gerrard who win the plaudits, it shouldn't be seen as a bad thing to have two world-class match winners who frequently make a difference; that's what they're there for. Also, it's not like the others aren't playing their part in providing the platform or chipping in with goals; Babel, Kuyt and Benayoun have 28 between them; two more for Crouch and Babel, and it will mean six players into double figures, while Torres could end with 30+ and Gerrard 20+. Meanwhile, the defence and shielding midfielders continue to play extremely well.
Even if some argue that he's not a ‘big game' player, in that you don't always see him dominate the major matches from start to finish, he is a ‘big moment' player. Liverpool have had few, if any, better at coming up with the contribution at the right time. Against Arsenal, as in Istanbul, it needed a quick riposte to change the complexion of the game. At other times, such as Olympiacos, West Ham and Inter Milan, it's been stunning last-gasp contributions.
Arsenal deserve most of the credit that comes their way. But I do feel Arsene Wenger is exempt from some of the criticisms levelled at others. In the last three seasons, Arsenal have amassed seven fewer Premiership points than Liverpool.
Arsenal are a young side. But Liverpool are also a fledgling team, and unlike Arsenal, the majority haven't been part of the set-up for years. The 18-man squads involved in last Wednesday's match had average ages of 25 (Arsenal) and 26 (Liverpool). By comparison with the other English teams involved, Manchester United's was 27 and Chelsea's 28. (Players' ages correct to the last day of this season.) And of course, had Agger been fit to play instead of Hyypia, the average age of the Reds' starting XI would come down by a full year.
While Arsenal have a few youngsters who are regularly on the bench –– Walcott, 19, and Bendtner, 20 –– they are not this team of raw kids as which they are portrayed. Almumia is 31, Gallas 30, Rosicky 27, Hleb 27, Toure 26, Eduardo 25, while van Persie and Adebayor are 24, and Eboue is nearly 24. Senderos is now 23, and Clichy will be 23 in the summer. The one truly young gem they have is Cesc Fabregas, who is about to turn 21.
The key difference is that most of Liverpool's younger players are new to England this year, and part of a newer project, and as such are lagging behind Arsenal's younger players in terms of adaptation. You will always get the exceptions to the rule like Torres, who adjusted very quickly (although has still improved), but the majority take time. Incredibly, none of Arsenal's starting XI arrived into English football after 2005, and nine were either at Arsenal (or Chelsea, in Gallas's case) in 2004. No wonder they play with a lot of understanding, of English football and of each other.
Contrast that with Liverpool, where six had arrived since 2006, and four of those since the start of 2007, and you can see the relativeness newness of BenÃtez's project. Arsenal had two subs who arrived in 2006, but otherwise they all pre-dated 2005. In other words, Wenger had collected nearly all of his squad before or during BenÃtez's first year. Liverpool's bench contained four players signed in the last nine months.
This returns to a point I've been making all season long: that Wenger, without the riches of Chelsea or Manchester United, has been allowed time for his youngsters to mature, and for his unit to grow in cohesiveness, by starting this project several years ago, and accepting two mediocre league seasons while they developed. BenÃtez, as a new boss with more to prove, was under more pressure to deliver quickly.
While Fabregas and Clichy are now top-class top-level players, you need to wait at least two or three years to judge BenÃtez's youngest signings, like Hobbs, Insua, Pacheco, Bruna, Nemeth and the impressive Plessis, who mixes midfield destruction with a sweet left foot.
I think it was the otherwise sensible Henry Winter who said on Sky's Sunday Supplement that "BenÃtez buys either good or bad players", while one of this weekend's papers said "Far from all of Rafa BenÃtez's numerous Liverpool recruits have succeeded" –– as if there was the existence of one single manager who doesn't get plenty wrong. One of my main bugbears is how Arsene Wenger's mistakes in the transfer market somehow get overlooked.
While, as with BenÃtez, he has unearthed a lot of great players, he's also bought a fair few failures and disappointments too. Stepanovs, Jeffers, Wright (Richard), Boa Morte, Diawara, Cygan, Wreh, Grimandi, Chukwunyelu Obinna, Danilevicious, Luzhny, van Bronckhurst and Baptista (bar one game, at Anfield) –– to name just a few; in all, a mixture of substandard players and a couple of talented ones who failed to settle.
Meanwhile, Wiltord and Reyes were £10m+ players who hardly set the world alight. With BenÃtez, a few cheap flops like Nunez, Josemi and Paletta (a mere kid) get brought up as if they are par for the course. You could add those three to the fee of Morientes and still not get what Arsenal paid for either Wiltord or Reyes.
With the relative merits of both sides I find this game virtually impossible to call. But Liverpool are ending the season on an upward curve, while Arsenal appear to be on a slippery slope. The full force of the European Kop, and it could easily be one more step towards another European Cup.
**************************************************************************************
Another top read by PT............Excellent stuff