Speaking after Real Madrid won 1-0 at St Jakob Park last month, Carlo Ancelotti tipped Basel to join his team in the knock-out stage of the Champions League on the basis that “they’re in better shape than Liverpool at this moment. They are in very good physical condition.” Maybe the five-times European Cup winner was giving a Swiss audience what they wanted to hear or he had seen Liverpool hit new depths at Crystal Palace three days earlier. Either way, Brendan Rodgers’ team have yet to construct a convincing riposte.
Basel’s visit to Anfield on Tuesday is a must-win game for Liverpool or their five-year wait to rejoin the European elite will end at the first hurdle. For Paulo Sousa’s team it is an avoid-defeat game and there was only encouragement for their observers on Saturday.
Sunderland contained Liverpool with ease to secure their ninth draw of the Premier League season. They stand alongside Aston Villa, Everton, Real Madrid, Hull City and Chelsea in taking a result at Anfield and Liverpool required an epic penalty shoot-out to finally see off Middlesbrough after 120 minutes in the Capital One Cup.
Had Gus Poyet’s attack possessed the control of his midfield or the composure of his defence, he could well have been toasting the club’s first win at Anfield since 1983. Sunderland’s superiority on the ball in central midfield, where Jordan Henderson and Lucas Leiva toiled, will not have been lost on the visitors from Switzerland.
Rodgers accentuated the positives as well he must before a defining period in Liverpool’s campaign. A second clean sheet in three games was not to be sniffed at after only two in the previous 19 outings while Raheem Sterling’s tireless display and Steven Gerrard’s late injection of quality were also highlighted by the manager.
Otherwise he had no choice but to look ahead to Basel, Manchester United, a Capital One Cup quarter-final at Bournemouth and the Premier League visit of Arsenal that completes a demanding sequence. There was little else to dwell on in the dullest of games. Incident and entertainment had the afternoon off.
“The situation is quite clear-cut,” said the Liverpool manager who, for all the scrutiny of him, is one win from achieving one of this season’s primary objectives – to advance from the group stage of the Champions League. “We need to win and it’s about having that calmness and composure. We know we’ll get great support. You’ve seen it here before, where the support the crowd give us is incredible. The players are obviously disappointed but there weren’t going to be many chances and we move into Tuesday’s game with great confidence.
“We have to stay calm. We have shown in the last four games that we have the ability to do that. The defending is more compact and we are harder to beat. Hopefully we can get that little bit more luck in the final third to get the goals.”
Attention was again drawn to Gerrard’s place on the substitutes’ bench for 67 minutes, not because of the logic behind Rodgers’ decision but because of Liverpool’s lack of guile and leaders without him, with the notable exception of Sterling in his final game as a teenager. The Gerrard debate may be tiresome but, as Poyet confirmed, his importance to Liverpool means the debate is not going away.
The Sunderland manager, who saw Wes Brown and Connor Wickham miss presentable chances, said: “You’re lucky, I’m going to tell you a little secret. We watched on video this week the difference between Liverpool with Gerrard in front of the back four and Gerrard off the front … And then he was not playing.
“So I suppose a few players in there said: ‘Yeah, well done, gaffer, all that video for no reason.’ These things happen but it’s good. You play against a top team, one of their players is special and he doesn’t play. It’s good news.”
Man of the match Liam Bridcutt (Sunderland)
