After an extremely successful international break for our Red heroes, Premiership action returns for Liverpool as we face Burnley tomorrow in a clash that will surely raise some eyebrows… hopefully for the correct reasons! Over the past two weeks, Kuyt and Babel helped Holland automatically progress to the World Cup, Gerrard and Johnson were key figures in two victories for England that saw them progress, Skrtel helped Slovakia to NEAR qualification (just a formality, really), and of course our Spanish trio of Reina, Torres, and Riera gave Spain a few more wins and qualification. Other than Mascherano and Benayoun, whose sides are struggling in international competition, our Reds are going to figure quite impressively in this upcoming World Cup in South Africa.
But now that the international break is over, we will focus on matters at home, and we face a crucial few weeks with four VERY winnable matches that could very well shape the rest of our season. Burnley at Anfield is the first in this series, and with the players we have that are at the peak of confidence, you would think we could give them a real stuffing. And I think we will do, despite Burnley’s good start to the season. I’ll even go as far as saying we’ll equal what we did against Stoke City, winning 4-0. Gerrard and Torres to score, and perhaps Kuyt and an unlikely source… Skrtel? That’s my prediction.
Anyhow, what you can expect from the match tomorrow is Liverpool pressing and Burnley soaking up the pressure. I do not think they’ll be super negative, as that is not Coyle’s style, and that should suit us brilliantly. Whenever sides have a go at us at Anfield, that’s when we tend to rip them into shreads… Aston Villa being the exception. We also seem to excel when the chips are down, and right now most pundits don’t think we’ll be able to cope with our poor start. Poor it might be, but we are only a few points behind Manchester United, and nobody is going to count them out, are they? Mathematically, anything is possible at this stage and there is no reason for us to feel that we are out of it. But, and this is a big but, we must start stringing together some results now as to not lose view of those ahead of us. The likes of Tottenham will probably fade away a touch, but you know that Chelsea and United won’t let up, and who knows what Man City are capable of achieving. Regardless, a home match against Burnley is a must win, and that will cause an urgency that should make us firm favorites to beat Burnley.
Of course, after Burnley, we have three matches that we should also win within two weeks. The home fixture against Debreceni in the Champions League on Wednesday is the first of those, and then we travel to Elland Road to face Leeds in the Carling Cup. That match DOES matter, because in my mind we need to win a cup badly to resurrect a sense of “winning” in the other big cups. Success at any competition breeds success in other competitions, and the League Cup could be the perfect opportunity to kick-start something big at Anfield. Leeds should be a perfect opportunity, as well, for the likes of Babel, Ngog, and Spearing to prove themselves and earn places in the side. After Leeds, we face West Ham, a side that we seem to destroy regularly… so yet another win would be the hope.
First things first, though, and Rafa’s mantra of ‘one match at a time’ should be firmly in the mind. 4-0 over Burnley! You read it here first! Well… maybe. If I’m wrong, you read it somewhere else first.
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