3 Critical Talking Points From Merseyside Derby – Liverpool Badly Missed Sturridge

The Merseyside derby never disappoints and neither did yesterday’s one. The game was fluid with some entertaining football, there were two beautiful goals with one potentially world class and both the teams showed indomitable spirit. With the defensive fragilities of both the teams who could imagine that it would end up as 1-1 and that too because goals which we normally do not see in football matches. Both the managers are considered to be young and exciting with an aggressive brand of football and they lived upto their reputation with pretty much end to end stuff going on. The spoils were certainly shared although many Liverpool fans may feel that the match was biased on their end. Here we talk about three talking points from the match.

1. The final ball of Liverpool missing

Liverpool did almost everything like they used to do last season. But the only major difference is becoming the final ball in the opposition half. Luis Suarez had many effects on the team from engaging the opposition marking him to scoring excellent goals. But his most important contribution was his trickery near the goal and providing that one defence splitting pass which could take the opposition by surprise. This season that is missing from this Liverpool unit and players like Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana and Markovic are failing to have that impact. This can be one of the reasons that the goals from open play have dried up and even yesterday Liverpool could only score from a free kick brilliantly taken by Steven Gerrard.

2. Everton a bit less attacking

Everton under Roberto Martinez had been a different team than it used to be. They are now an attacking unity who takes even the biggest of the teams by surprise. But yesterday Everton laid back a little and did not press Liverpool as hard as many would have thought. At times Liverpool were passing the ball in their own half and no Everton player tried to steal it. The scenario remained the same even when Liverpool were leading and Everton desperately needed an equiliser. They preferred to attack their Merseyside neighbour mainly on the counter and this allowed Liverpool the space to keep possession in the Everton half for long spells of time. But finally Everton did punish Liverpool, courtesy a brilliant strike from Jagielka from outside the box. Certainly the football lovers would love to see the Everton we know of when the take the field the next time.

3. Sturridge badly missed

For all of Mario Balotelli’s talent he is very much of an unpredictable product and this has cost Liverpool three points yesterday. The close range miss that he made could have sealed the match for Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers must be furious at the striker now. This brings into the question Daniel Sturridge and his prolonged absence from the scenario due to injury. Over the last couple of season Sturridge has developed into a world class finisher and it is not in his nature to miss shots like that. Liverpool would be hoping for his return against Basel in the midweek Champions League clash.