Stevie Interview with Tony Barrett

Gerrard is old enough to know Liverpool need experience
Tony Barrett

January 15 2013 11:01AM


Steven Gerrard doesn’t tend to be outspoken. The Liverpool captain holds strong opinions and he delivers them forthrightly and with conviction when needs be but his aim is rarely to cause controversy, even though his standing in English football makes headlines inevitable.

So when Gerrard politely and ever so delicately admitted last week that he disagrees with his own club’s transfer policy it caused more of a stir than it would have done had the likes of Martin Skrtel or Glen Johnson made similar comments.

But it also raised the issue of the type of player that Liverpool have signed since Brendan Rodgers took over, amid growing suggestions that the determination of Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the club’s owner, for the acquisition of young players to be prioritised is restricting their manager’s options.

At the weekend, Ian Ayre denied that such a policy is without flexibility, telling Sky Sports News that “if we find the right deals for the right players we’ll get them done” and that may turn out to be the case. Rodgers himself has denied that he is either compelled or under pressure to sign players who are 23 or under, which begs the question of why all but one of his signings fits that age profile?

Fabio Borini, Joe Allen, Daniel Sturridge, Samed Yesil and Nuri Sahin all fall into that criteria, as does Tom Ince, Rodgers’s other main target for the January transfer window. The lesser spotted Oussama Assaidi is the only exception and even he celebrated his 24th birthday only two days before joining Liverpool from Heerenveen in a £2.5 million transfer last August.

Whether it’s by accident or design – and given FSG’s commitment to statistics and profiling it is hard to believe it is the former, however strong the denials from Ayre and Rodgers – Liverpool’s transfer policy has been weighted heavily in favour of signing young players, with qualities like potential, energy and sell on value being prioritised over experience and knowhow.

On the one occasion that Rodgers wanted to sign a senior professional he wasn’t rejected, but nor was he backed as FSG refused to pay anything over £4 million for the 29-year-old Clint Dempsey who subsequently joined Tottenham Hotspur from Fulham. “You don’t just look at the calendar,” Bob Paisley once replied when asked about the virtues of older players and the feeling persists that Dempsey’s biggest drawback as far as Liverpool were concerned wasn’t his first touch or his prickly temperament, it was his birth certificate.

For long spells against Manchester United on Sunday, Liverpool looked exactly what they are – a young and relatively inexperienced team lacking in both physical and mental authority. Even though Sturridge’s young legs took him into the right place at the right time to score the goal that threatened to bring Liverpool back into the game, it was telling that the chance was created by the 32-year-old Gerrard winning possession in a key area and then having the drive and desire to advance.

“To be successful at this level you need to get the mix right,” Gerrard had said before the game, probably without daring to imagine that his claim would be vindicated so quickly and so dramatically. The problem for Liverpool was that there were far too many instances at Old Trafford when it was glaringly apparent that they do not yet have the right mix.

One of the reasons for this is that the players they have signed recently don’t just fit an age profile, they are all of a certain type. Borini, Allen and Sturridge are all technically good but none could claim to have a genuine physical presence. The same goes for Assaidi, whom Rodgers doubts is cut out for English football, and Sahin, who was allowed to leave last week having failed to establish himself in the Premier League.

Rodgers resists claims that Liverpool are a soft touch, but United made them appear so during an embarrassingly one-sided first half in which the result should have been put well beyond doubt. The passing and movement that led to their opening goal, scored by Robin van Persie, may have been eye-catching and impressive but Liverpool allowed them to play with possession being retained and developed without a single challenge of any significance being made.

“To concede the goal in the way that we did was very disappointing,” said Rodgers. “They worked their way through to the edge of the box unchallenged. It’s a disappointing goal when you analyse it but it’s something we’ll improve on.”

Those comments were not made on Sunday, they came in the aftermath of Liverpool’s 2-2 home draw with Young Boys in November 23. Similar comments could also have been made about Aston Villa’s second goal in a shock 3-1 win at Anfield three weeks later when Andreas Weimann provided the finishing flourish to an 18- pass move that never came close to being disrupted by an opponent.

At times, Liverpool’s weakness in such situations is there for all to see and yet there do not appear to be any plans in place to target the kind of players who specialise in stopping the opposition from playing.

There were last spring when Ayre held talks with Mohamed Diame about a possible move to Anfield but that potential deal collapsed after Kenny Dalglish, who had identified the powerful midfield player as a key transfer target, lost his job as manager.

Since then, Liverpool have gone to an opposite extreme with the emphasis being placed on players who are best at keeping possession rather than those who are expert at winning it back. As a result there is no shortage of technique but performances have highlighted a lack of toughness, be it physical or mental.

“There are five things generally accepted to be necessary to make a footballer: skill, strength, stamina, speed and flexibility,” Paisley used to say. Were he still around today, the legendary manager would look at the Liverpool side and he would see four of those five qualities but he wouldn’t see a great deal of strength.

Even when pressed on his side’s apparent frailties, Rodgers named only Gerrard as someone who had the necessary physical aggression. For over a decade Gerrard has been cited as the solution whenever Liverpool have a problem. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he has his own doubts about Liverpool’s transfer strategy – he is at the stage of his career when he needs to be able to rely on others and all he sees is the arrival of player after player who is likely to rely on him.

 

Just spotted this will read now.

 

decent read.... i do think ayre's comments this week were totally designed to downplay and pander to gerrards own comments which i think were actually quite fiar.

Gerrard just broke ranks and laid it on the line that the club should be buying talent not youth.

perosnally all i see is youth lreanring how to play midtable cos they are not being lead by anyone.

 

It's a good article and I hope the Board listen. We'll see just how much influence Stevie has at the club.