We're coping without them, but has the loss of Gerrard/Sturridge made us better?

heer heer

That's almost like beer, beer.

Has it made us better? 

Well I think without the captain our midfield has definitely looked better and Henderson has taken his performances up by a few notches.  Our midfield does looker better without him.  For the first time in over a decade and a half there should be a little pressure on the captain to make sure he delivers on the pitch.  But I don't doubt that he can raise the bar even at this stage of his career.  And this competition he will enjoy.  Sturridge's injury has seen the emergence of Sterling and obviously Suarez raising the bar again to a level only he can play at. 

Overall we are a better team than of a few weeks ago, but think both Sturridge and Gerrard can rise to the challenge and make us even better or atleast I hope so.

Bottom line is that both Gerrard  & Sturridge are world class and will fit any system ,
Are we better without them  ? In a word no , but we have played excellently without them , putting one or both back in will enhance the team and of course a slight adjustment or two will have to happen,
There is no reason at all to suggest that exchanging say Lucas for Gerrard or Sterling for Studge would F**k things up,

In Jan it's expected we hope that players will be brought in to strengthen so it's stands to reason adjustments will happen in any case, all in all the system is fine and working very well it's the players who have to adjust to it to allow it to thrive and improve it , simples really when we think about it, what was it Shanks said,  'it's a simple game complicated by idiots'

Brendan has us playing some great stuff and we will get better , suddenly others are taking note of our presence and are no longer considered a flash in the pan side,

Going to the Etihad and bossing city and almost , almost coming away with at least a point no other team have even come close to that,
Now I don't know about you but I think Maureen's morons will self destruct if we apply the same kind of pressure we have used recently, I'm looking forward to this today taking even a point will be sweet enough but I think we can take all 3 ,

COYR , make FT look a bigger chump than he already is, WHO. ? I hear you ask,

EXACTLY !



YNWA

Now there's a sufficient sample of games, my conclusion...

Losing Gerrard and Sturridge certainly made us better against the hammers, in one free flowing game against a non pressing team where our midfield had no problem to express itself (and even, it's not proven a team with Gerrard wouldn't have performed as well in this game, considering the freedom the surrendering Spurs gave to our midfielders).
Against Cardiff the "new" Liverpool got an expected result we would certainly have had with G&S as well (+ or - one goal). The enthusiasm of our younger midfield didn't even prevent the usual "bad second half when winning against inferior opposition", a problem often associated with Gerrard's lack of motivation for those games, but it seems he's not alone.
Against City it's arguable that Gerrard would have had difficulties to influence the game due to the quality of their midfield, and even if he was fit it may have been a better option to start someone younger, but Sturridge instead of any of our attacking players would certainly have scored getting passes like Suarez ones in this game (or the ones Gerrard could have delivered was him playing). Now our overall performance was very good, so it's arguable the team/formation was the best we could deploy for this game.
Against a Chelsea hacking the game at every occasion, Gerrard's experience and set pieces delivery would have been invaluable and I think we would have won with him instead of Lucas or Allen in our midfield three. Also with G&S available, we could certainly have managed team fatigue/ new injuries without having to use an unproven youngster playing for half an hour in a non-natural position.

We can be happy that the team performed without them and got an impressive result against Spurs, but there's no clear absolute improvement working against every team (out of the one of some individual performances, that were unsufficient before the Spurs game, but who can say that now that their confidence issue look resolved Sterling, Allen or Henderson wouldn't play as well with Gerrard and Sturridge in the team ?).
Out of that having some of our best players injured had one main effect : reducing our capacity to adapt to different opposition or to the frequency of games.

IMO both Gerrard and Sturridge will have no problem securing a starting place as soon they are back to fitness, comparing their quality to the one of our other players, and between Lucas and Allen there's certainly a spot to free for Stevie. The only problem is how to adapt our formation to include both Daniel, Coutinho and Sterling who all desserve to start most games.

It doesn't matter now with our injuries