by Michael Cox
Kane, meanwhile, took a while to convince observers of his true quality. He was a slightly awkward, clumsy player who boasted that old-school knack of being in the right place at the right time. But there was more to Kane’s game than goalscoring, and when he suffered a goal drought the value of his link play became more obvious. Notably, like Agüero, he took the number 10 shirt rather than the number 9, and it was notable that Kane was compared to two former England strikers, Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham, who were entirely opposite in nature – which is precisely why they formed such a fine striking partnership. Kane had the goalscoring ability of Shearer and the link play of Sheringham. He was, as Van Persie would say, the classic 9.5. ‘I played in different positions as a kid and it helped me learn different parts of the game,’ Kane explained. ‘Playing alone up front means you have to be good at so much more than taking chances. I know, in a game, I am going to receive the ball with my back to goal, and that the team will need me to link up and bring others into play.’
The ultimate example of the acceptance of this unorthodox forward came later, when Jürgen Klopp took charge of Liverpool. The major part of Klopp’s game plan was his high-tempo counter-pressing, which demanded energy and dynamism from his centre-forward, as well as the ability to play quick, neat interchanges with onrushing midfielders. Klopp discarded Christian Benteke, who won aerial duels and scored goals but did little else, and also frequently left out traditional strikers Daniel Sturridge and Divock Origi in order to field Roberto Firmino – yet another converted number 10 – as his most advanced foward. Playing without a striker would have been considered lunacy a few years earlier, yet there was minimal dissent following Klopp’s decision. In fact it was widely agreed that Firmino suited the system much better.
‘There is a wide spectrum of types of strikers,’ Klopp explained. ‘Roberto is a very offensive player, so he is a striker. Everyone asked me, “What about Firmino, we need a real target striker!” Roberto is a striker. A lot of strikers are 1.6 metres; Lionel Messi, what is he? Firmino can play and score goals and he is flexible and at the moment in brilliant shape. He gets in the box and then something happens.’ That was a relatively rare nod to the direct influence of Messi – few managers wanted to invite that comparison.
Why, then, did all these players take time to become proper strikers? The usual comment, in various forms from the players themselves, is that they believe there’s ‘more to their game’ than simply scoring goals – Van Persie and Kane, in particular, are keen to mention their link play. But, of course, football had become universal – every player has more to their game than their basic job description, and in the possession era, it was about linking moves as much as finishing them.
Part Eight
Post-possession
22
Rodgers’ Reversal
‘When you look at the stats of the modern game, I’m big on controlling domination of the ball. But against Everton we were able to dominate without the ball.’
Brendan Rodgers
Twice during the Premier League era the runners-up have proved considerably more fascinating than the champions.
The first instance was Newcastle’s inability to win the title in 1995/96, largely because of their tactical naivety – and there were many similarities with Liverpool’s dramatic failure in 2013/14. These were two massive clubs from major footballing cities in the north, both desperate for their first top-flight league championship in decades. Both were relentlessly attacking, individualistic sides who often overlooked the importance of defending. Add a young manager, a volatile South American striker and a legendary late-season Anfield thriller, and it’s clear that Liverpool were the new ‘Entertainers’.
After first Roy Hodgson and then Kenny Dalglish had been dismissed, Liverpool were now managed by Brendan Rodgers. The unusual sight of his Swansea side being applauded off the Anfield pitch stuck in the minds of Liverpool’s relatively new owners, Fenway Sports Group, who had transformed the Boston Red Sox with a progressive statistical approach frequently referred to as ‘moneyball’.
FSG were fresh, ambitious owners who wanted a progressive manager, and Rodgers, with his love of possession figures, seemed a natural fit for both FSG’s number-based approach and Liverpool’s historic emphasis upon attractive football. Rodgers proudly spoke of his belief in passing the ball, and wanted to replicate the possession statistics he’d achieved at Swansea. ‘When you’ve got the ball, 65 to 70 per cent of the time it’s a football death for the other team,’ he explained after a few weeks. ‘We’re not at that stage yet, but that’s what we will get to. It’s death by football.’ This was the unashamed target: complete possession dominance.
His first transfer window lacked transformative arrivals, but his intentions were obvious; out went Andy Carroll, the classic target man who required regular crosses, and Charlie Adam, the midfielder who thumped ambitious balls downfield. In came Joe Allen, one of Rodgers’ dependable Swansea midfielders whom he optimistically referred to as ‘the Welsh Xavi’, and Fabio Borini, whom he’d coached for Chelsea’s youth side and who had played under Pep Guardiola’s long-term successor Luis Enrique at Roma. Both already understood Rodgers’ possession-based approach.
Rodgers also started his Liverpool tenure starring in a six-part fly-on-the-wall TV series entitled Being: Liverpool – if the curious punctuation implied other clubs would agree to similar treatment, the content did little to persuade them. Filmed throughout Rodgers’ first pre-season, with no competitive matches and few meaningful storylines, it relied upon Rodgers’ monologues for content. It was all slightly too The Office for comfort, thanks to a combination of unremarkable behind-the-scenes shots, ‘Brendan’ being disturbingly close to ‘Brent’, and his tendency to say things like ‘I’ve always said that you can live without water for many days, but you can’t live for a second without hope.’ He became a figure of fun, mocked for his buzzwords and, unfairly, for a stunt where he held up three sealed envelopes to his squad, supposedly containing the names of the three players he believed wouldn’t push themselves throughout the season. This was considered lunacy – but it was a move borrowed directly from Sir Alex Ferguson ahead of his 1993/94 title-winning season with Manchester United.
Rodgers’ subsequent debut season was underwhelming. Liverpool failed to win in their first five games, then improved steadily and were boosted by the arrival of Daniel Sturridge and Coutinho in January. However, they finished seventh, just a one-place improvement from the previous campaign, and without a cup run to compensate – Dalglish had won the League Cup and reached the FA Cup Final in his only full season during his second spell as manager. The end of Rodgers’ first campaign was dominated, meanwhile, by Luis Suárez.
While the Uruguayan forward – whom Rodgers had once greeted with ‘You’re a fantastic player, congratulations’ in Spanish during his Swansea days – proved highly popular at Liverpool, he had an unfortunate tendency to get himself into trouble. Most notoriously, there was an incident between him and Manchester United left-back Patrice Evra, which resulted in the FA finding Suárez guilty of using ‘insulting words including a reference to Evra’s colour’ and handing him an eight-match ban. Dalglish backed Suárez to the hilt, which involved Liverpool’s players warming up for a subsequent game in T-shirts showing support for Suárez, an ill-judged campaign that was widely ridiculed and which, some suggested, might have contributed to Dalglish’s dismissal. Suárez’s first game back following the ban was inevitably at Old Trafford, where he started by refusing to shake Evra’s hand and ended by scoring. That was Suárez: shameless and superb within the same match.
Towards the end of Rodgers’ first campaign, meanwhile, Suárez earned an even longer ban – this time ten matches – when he reacted to a routine chase for the ball with Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanović by biting the Serbian defender on the arm. The Premier League was accustomed to foreign attackers introducing new practices into English football, but this was something entirely unexpe
cted, an innovative take on violent conduct. Most bizarrely, it was neither the first nor the last time Suárez was banned for biting, also sinking his teeth into opponents with Ajax and Uruguay. Even Prime Minister David Cameron got involved, saying Suárez was ‘setting the most appalling example’.
In the summer of 2013, and midway through his suspension, Suárez decided he was sick of English football. He’d been interested in a move to Juventus the previous summer, and came to a gentleman’s agreement with Liverpool that if they didn’t achieve Champions League qualification he could leave. There were two problems, however: the club went back on their agreement and few foreign clubs showed serious interest. Arsenal, however, were extremely keen, and after discovering that Suárez’s contract contained a release clause for offers in advance of £40m, took this literally by cheekily offering £40,000,001.
What followed was curious; Liverpool seemingly fibbed about the nature of the release clause, claiming that the only thing Arsenal’s bid activated was an obligation for them to inform Suárez of the London club’s interest. That would have been a largely pointless clause, and as Liverpool owner Henry later admitted, was a complete fabrication. ‘What we’ve found is that contracts don’t seem to mean a lot in England, actually, in world football,’ Henry proudly told the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. ‘It doesn’t matter how long a player’s contract is, he can decide he’s leaving – we sold a player, Fernando Torres, for £50m, that we didn’t want to sell. We were forced to. Since apparently these contracts don’t seem to hold, we took the position that we’re just not selling.’
Suárez now held two completely different grudges against Liverpool, as he outlined in an explosive Guardian interview. First, the gentleman’s agreement: ‘Last year I had the opportunity to move to a big European club and I stayed on the understanding that if we failed to qualify for the Champions League the following season I’d be allowed to go,’ he said. ‘I gave absolutely everything last season but it was not enough to give us a top-four finish – now all I want is for Liverpool to honour our agreement.’ Second, the Arsenal bid: ‘I have the club’s word and we have the written contract, and we are happy to take this to the Premier League for them to decide but I do not want it to come to that.’ Suárez was essentially banned from first-team training and told he wouldn’t be reintegrated until he apologised.
It’s remarkable that Suárez remained at Liverpool at all, let alone produced among the most impressive individual campaigns of the Premier League era. A major factor in his continued presence in 2013/14 was the intervention of Steven Gerrard, who had long been club captain but who was more important than ever following the retirement of Jamie Carragher, a more natural leader. Gerrard was surprisingly crucial in Liverpool’s transfer activities that summer. In between sending texts to Shakhtar Donetsk’s Willian, attempting to convince him of a move to Anfield – the Brazilian eventually turned down Liverpool and Tottenham and joined Chelsea for Champions League football – Gerrard persuaded Suárez that fighting Liverpool over a ‘sideways’ switch to Arsenal wasn’t worthwhile, and he should focus on playing another great campaign with the club to secure a move to Real Madrid or Barcelona.
This convinced Suárez – who, after all, had been primarily determined to leave the Premier League entirely, rather than commit to a long-term contract elsewhere in England. Gerrard met Suárez for a morning chat at Melwood, Liverpool’s training ground, essentially disobeying orders because the Uruguayan was banned until the first team had gone home at lunchtime, and then arranged a meeting between Suárez and Rodgers. Suárez wouldn’t attend unless Gerrard joined him. Everything was smoothed over; Suárez didn’t want to go to Arsenal, and he stayed at Liverpool. There was, of course, simply the small matter of him being banned for the first five games of the season. But this was nevertheless a huge victory for Liverpool, who had managed to retain their star player against all odds. Gerrard, in particular, deserved great credit for the fact that Liverpool mounted a Suárez-led title challenge in 2013/14, a campaign that was largely about the contributions of these two players.
In addition to acting as Liverpool’s unofficial transfer negotiator, Gerrard also had his testimonial that August. He’d long since passed the ten-year mark that entitles a player to the honour, and the decision to hold it in 2013 felt like recognition that Gerrard was nearing the end. Notably, he still hadn’t won a league title, and had seemingly abandoned all hope (clearly not having listened to Rodgers’ aforementioned proverb). ‘It will be a miracle if I now realise my dream of winning the title with Liverpool,’ Gerrard wrote in his autobiography, published the previous year. ‘I say that because of my age and where we finished in the league the past couple of years, and also the situation we’re in with our rivals.’ Liverpool started 2013/14 at 33/1 for the title – fifth-favourites – and therefore outsiders for a Champions League place. But Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea had all been destabilised by managerial changes. The appointment of David Moyes and Manuel Pellegrini – and the second coming of José Mourinho – meant that all three teams were unpredictable going into the new season. Arsenal, meanwhile, completed no major signing until the arrival of Mesut Özil with the season already under way. There was a chance for Liverpool to take the league by storm.
They started in impressive fashion. In Suárez’s absence, Daniel Sturridge played alone up front in a 4–2–3–1 and scored the winner in Liverpool’s first three matches of the season against Stoke, Aston Villa and Manchester United: 1–0, 1–0, 1–0. This proved inappropriate preparation for Liverpool’s eventual all-out-attack philosophy, however, and they didn’t win 1–0 again all season.
They subsequently drew 2–2 at Swansea and lost 1–0 at Southampton, before a trip to Sunderland. This wouldn’t normally have been a particularly significant game, but it marked the return of Suárez after his ten-match ban. Surprisingly, Rodgers completely abandoned his previous system, deploying a 3–4–1–2 simply to get Suárez and Sturridge in their favoured centre-forward roles, without resorting to a simple 4–4–2 that wouldn’t offer a three-man central midfield. Other players were square pegs in round holes: Victor Moses wasn’t a number 10, Jordan Henderson wasn’t a right-wingback. But in Liverpool’s next four matches they scored 12 goals, with only three scorers: Suárez with six, Sturridge with four (one in each match) and two penalties from Gerrard. Liverpool, much like the Manchester United side who triumphed the previous season, were all about their centre-forwards, who were nicknamed – with a nod to Blackburn’s partnership of Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton in 1994/95 – the SAS.
Much like that SAS, however, Sturridge and Suárez weren’t particularly close for a similar reason: both wanted to be the main man. The first time they spoke at Liverpool’s training ground, Sturridge approached Suárez and immediately said: ‘Together, you and I can do something big here.’ Little sign of tension, you might think, but it’s telling that Suárez’s self-confessed reaction was, ‘It’s not normal for a new player to be as bold as Daniel was that day, and I did momentarily think, “What’s that guy saying that to me for?”’ Suárez insists, however, that they got along perfectly well.
Gerrard’s interpretation is more enlightening. ‘SAS was not a partnership in the mould of John Toshack and Kevin Keegan,’ he said. ‘Suárez and Sturridge instead worked as two gifted individuals. Brendan often spoke about the fact that they were like two soloists vying with each other rather than playing together as a harmonious duo. They never said much to each other in training … it never got nasty but there was an edge between them. There were probably some games when Luis was a bit heavy on Daniel.’ This hardly affected their individual scoring rates; Suárez hit 31 goals, Sturridge 21, the first time one club had the Premier League’s top two goalscorers. They weren’t, however, a proper partnership.
Still, playing them up front meant Liverpool could attack two against two when they won possession, and in a 2–0 defeat to Arsenal in early November it was notable how often L
iverpool attempted long balls into the channels, trying to exploit the space vacated by the opposition’s attacking full-backs. But Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny was outstanding, consistently dispossessing both. On a rare occasion when Suárez escaped the Frenchman’s attention, he ambitiously shot at goal rather than passing to an unmarked Sturridge, who threw his arms into the air in disgust. At half-time Rodgers reverted to 4–2–3–1, permanently abandoning the back three.
Sturridge’s absence through injury during December meant Suárez was unquestionably the main man, and he produced a scintillating succession of performances, including ten goals and three assists in a sensational four-game spell. He seemingly considered every player on the pitch to be merely apparatus for helping him to score, regularly bouncing the ball off opponents to continue his dribbles and depending upon one-twos more than a wedding DJ testing his microphone. At times he was simply unstoppable, with his four-goal haul against Norwich made up entirely of absolutely brilliant strikes.
It became clear that Suárez was enjoying among the best-ever individual Premier League campaigns, up there with Dennis Bergkamp in 1997/98, Thierry Henry in 2003/04 and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2007/08. There were only two negatives: him missing the first five games of the season through suspension, when Liverpool dropped five points to average opposition, and the fact that he didn’t score in six matches against other top four sides, matches that counted for four of Liverpool’s five defeats. By definition it’s harder to score against stronger sides, and it’s worth remembering that Liverpool’s title challenge of 2008/09 failed because they weren’t swatting aside Premier League minnows regularly enough, which wasn’t a problem when the ruthless Suárez was available. Nevertheless, 1.1 goals per game against the Premier League’s ‘other’ 16 sides contrasts sharply with his 0.0 against the top four.
