Manure put out a strong team against us, and Liverpool seem to be pulling out all the stops to get their better players fit to play against us. Seems this is a sign of how far we have come.
That's all well and good but we still need to stop dropping points against the likes of Stoke, WBA and Palace. These are the games which are most important to us.
In Liverpool's case they have no choice - if Henderson and Gerrard don't play they'll have a make shift midfield.
It's not so much how far we've come as the position those clubs find themselves in. Man U have had a terrible start and can't afford to drop players against anybody because they need every point they can get, and Liverpool are in danger of going on a slide if they don't get a result. Arsenal did rotate, they played Bendtner for a start and I remember saying to an Arsenal fan on the night that their bench looked as strong as their team, and Chelsea was the opening day so they were always going to field a strong team.
Gerrard has only started training within the last few days so won't be fully fit yet. He'll either start and play for an hour or so or come on second half if needed. Probably the former.
Henderson is awful. How he's at a top 6 club and in the England squad is baffling because I'm yet to see why.
Normally I'd agree however Henderson has been markedly better since Gerrard hasn't been playing, anyway I've just layed Liverpool for £50 at 1.31 on Betfair as well as sticking a tenner on us to win @ 12.0. After the performance/result against Fulham, combined with potential selection problems for Liverpool, those prices are just too good to ignore. Maybe there'll be a backlash from them because of our win against them at the KC, if so it'll cost me £25.50, but if we win it'll be a nice £160.00.
Not bothered either way. Liverpool will be much weaker on Jan 1st 2014 than when they came to the KC on Dec 1st 2013.