Team Focus: Liverpool Must Show Purpose They Have Lacked Thus Far Against United

A few days before Liverpool reheat the biggest rivalry in English football history, Nathaniel Clyne was striking all the right notes, making all the right noises.

“We need to be at their throats from the start,” the full-back said ahead of his new team’s trip to Manchester United. “Working hard, playing on the front foot and taking the game to them is going to be key. We can’t allow them to pass the ball around as they look to or have too much free space.”

The problem is that Liverpool haven’t done much of any of that so far this season. Other than a single assertive half of football against Arsenal, their first four games of the campaign have been conspicuously flat. They may have tried to work hard, but the system hasn’t exactly worked well. They haven’t really been able to get at anyone’s throats and have almost let games pass them by rather than properly take it to the opposition.

Brendan Rodgers was initially able to wave away complaints by pointing to results and insisting that the performances would follow, but the atrocious 3-0 collapse at home to West Ham United felt as if it was as likely to come from the opening games as any pick-up in display.

Then there was the way Dejan Lovren in particular had an awful day, and that after such pre-match praise from his manager. It conformed to Rodgers’s unfortunate propensity from last season to overly talk up some aspect of his team just at the point when it was about run into big problems.

Another problem is that, so far, the general level of the football has actually been even more tepid than last season - a campaign that only occasionally rose to convincing itself. Liverpool have lacked spark and bite - and pretty much everything that Clyne called for - apart from in that first 45 minutes at the Emirates.

“The overall performance was disappointing from the off,” Rodgers acknowledged after West Ham. “With and without the ball we have to be much better in the future.”

To begin, they have also had less of the ball. Possession rates of 54.4% have fallen to 51.1%, and they’ve also been less penetrative in general play. An average of 15.5 shots per game last season has dropped to 13.5 now, with a lower proportion of the latter on target - 3.5 compared to 5.1.

At the other end, Liverpool are also conceding more shots per game, an average of 12.8 rather than 10.9.

The wonder is whether Rodgers can again re-introduce that vibrancy, the fluency with which his best football is most associated.

Despite the transfer business done this summer, that almost totally suited the manager’s ideals, there’s still been a sense of uncertainty about his future. The very fact he did so much business may be one potential problem, since it can take time to mould such a diverse new group to a very specific style. Although Liverpool did all their buying much earlier this summer, and did it very well, time may still be necessary. It is also conspicuous that results from the second half of Rodgers seasons are generally better than the first half, precisely for that reason.

Of course, that’s not much help this weekend, especially when a bad performance will only increase the pressure after the West Ham debacle. They at least face a Manchester United team who have generally looked rather limp themselves, and have suffered from the same kind of sterile possession as Liverpool have.

If the Arsenal game was anything to go by, too, it is possible that Liverpool may now need that level of opposition to actually lift them, to derive a psychological response out of them to compensate for the absence of proper cohesion.

It might be the only way they grab this game by the throat, as Clyne so demands.

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