Liverpool Need More Forward Thinking

This was a tight affair in which individual battles canceled out the threat posed by each side's most creative players until the referee, Mike Riley, stepped in to hand Liverpool the initiative on the hour. The home side deserved their win thereafter, but the reality is that Rafael Benítez's team will continue to be frustrated by draws and low-scoring contests unless they learn to unleash their most threatening talents on the break, and play with a little more adventure.

This game may have gone the way of so many other of their other matches had it not been for Riley's decision to dismiss Frank Lampard. In my view, the Chelsea man went for the ball, Xabi Alonso came in late, and the wrong man walked. Up to that point the game had lacked forward creativity and imagination, with Liverpool content with two deep-lying midfielders in Javier Mascherano and Alonso, neither of whom commits to forward runs.

In that system, it was left solely to Steven Gerrard to break into the box to support Fernando Torres, but he was consistently running forward centrally and straight into a packed defence. Mikel John Obi covered his runs and, when Gerrard broke away, he was immediately confronted by John Terry or Alex, ever eager to intercept. In a five-man midfield, one of the quintet has to be given the freedom to drift wide and open up the opposing defence, if only to offer some variety to discomfort defensive markers.

With Alvaro Arbeloa also cautious at right-back, Gerrard might have considered making the occasional run away from the center into a wide position (see diagram) to make a two-versus-one on the flank and pull his marker out from the center.The reality is that, when Liverpool got wide here, neither Dirk Kuyt nor Albert Riera proved a progressive winger capable of hitting the byline on their own. The problem remains for Liverpool that if Gerrard ventures wide, neither of the two defensive midfielders would break into the box to compensate for his absence, leaving the Merseysiders a forward short when the ball is delivered. But this is a conundrum with which Benítez must wrestle.

The logical solution would be for Alonso, with his potent shooting ability, to get further forward to benefit from Gerrard's invention from out wide, though caution still dictates Liverpool's approach.

It was such a tight contest until Lampard's dismissal, with chances so hard to come by as players made recovery runs when the ball was conceded with even greater intent than they supported their own possession. Liverpool will remain cagey until they look to open up. Dirk Kuyt works but Yossi Benayoun can dribble past players. Ryan Babel, too, though erratic is more progressive than Albert Riera, but oh for the imagination of a Dalglish or Beardsley. Or, indeed, a running winger like John Barnes.