Work commenced on a new £114m main stand at Anfield on Monday but proof that some things do not change at Liverpool was unearthed inside the old one. Ten years to the day since Rafael Benítez gave thanks to Steven Gerrard and Liverpool’s powers of escapology against Olympiakos, Brendan Rodgers sat in the same place as the Spaniard and fielded questions on his team’s continued reliance on their 34-year-old captain. His answer was telling; Liverpool cannot bank on history repeating itself.
Another must-win Champions League group game invites comparisons with the 3-1 win over Olympiakos that propelled Liverpool towards Istanbul in 2005, and parallels do not end with the timing of Basel’s visit or the predicament facing Rodgers’ team. A draw at Aston Villa on the Saturday before Rivaldo and Co arrived at Anfield had left Benítez’s side with three wins in eight games. Saturday’s stalemate against Sunderland stretched Rodgers’ recent record to two wins in eight and as was the case a decade ago, doubt over Gerrard’s future at Liverpool was an unavoidable distraction.
Then, Liverpool’s captain had gone public with his frustration at the club’s transfer expenditure and insisted he would consider leaving at the end of the season unless there were signs of tangible progress. The threat was almost carried out even after Istanbul but it helped charge the atmosphere against the Greek side and the elation when Gerrard soared towards the Kop in celebration of his 86th-minute winner. Ten years later, and without ignoring the contributions of the goalscoring substitutes Florent Sinama Pongolle and Neil Mellor to that European reprieve, Liverpool are again looking to Gerrard for guidance while uncertainty hangs over his contract.
Plus ça change ...
It would be foolish to discount another Gerrard rescue act against Basel but it is a poor reflection on Liverpool’s recent planning, and the £500m plus spent on new players since 2005, that Rodgers has few reliable sources of inspiration beyond his captain. The 67 minutes he spent on the bench against Sunderland delivered another reminder of the lack of guile, quality and leadership without the captain.
Raheem Sterling shouldered the responsibility until Gerrard’s introduction against Gus Poyet’s team but Liverpool will require a vast collective improvement against the Swiss champions.
“This competition has a great history for Liverpool and that game against Olympiakos is part of that history,” said Rodgers. “This game is an opportunity for these players to qualify and to write themselves into folklore. We cannot be reliant solely on Steven. It has to be about a team performance against Basel. We need others to be a catalyst for the team. That is the nature of Steven’s game. There are very few world-class players around so when you are a world-class talent the responsibility falls on you, but this is about the collective. We need the whole team functioning at the top level to get a result.”
Liverpool’s history generates more confidence for Rodgers’ team than the history of the Champions League, where only six teams have qualified for the knockout phase having taken four points from the opening five games.
Liverpool’s European background also encourages more than their present form. The team have not won in four Champions League games, lost four of their last six Champions League games at home and triumphed in only five of 12 matches in all competitions at Anfield this season (six in 12 if the Capital One Cup penalty shoot-out win over Middlesbrough is included).
Seven goals in eight Premier League games at Anfield may also encourage Paulo Sousa to sit back and invite pressure on to his Basel team who only need to avoid defeat to qualify. “Nobody is thinking about not getting through,” said the Liverpool goalkeeper, Simon Mignolet. “The only thing we are thinking about is getting the result that we need. We are only thinking about winning. That is the job in hand and the one we are focusing on. If we win, we are going in to the next round. That is all that matters.”
The situation confronting Liverpool in 2014 is not as ominous as on 8 December 2004, when victory by a two-goal margin was needed to qualify for the knock-out phase. The scrappiest of 1-0 wins would be cause for celebration against Basel but while a recent back-to-basics approach has brought improvement in defence, creativity and a cutting edge remain works in progress. “The group is coming together after a difficult spell,” said Rodgers. “Game-by-game I can see the difference in the team. I feel we have goals in the squad. I believe we have enough talent in the group to get the goals we need to win.”
Basel have not taken a point on their Champions League travels this season, losing at Real Madrid and 1-0 at Ludogorets, though they have pipped Liverpool to second place in the group stage once before, back in 2002-03 when Gerrard was again the focus due to a drop in form he would only later attribute to his parents’ divorce. Liverpool’s only win in the competition this term arrived courtesy of a stoppage-time Gerrard penalty against Ludogorets in their opening match and for all the spin applied to their display at the Bernabéu, Rodgers’ side have yet to deliver a performance worthy of this level. It is now or never.
“We are in a much better mind-set than we were back then,” the Liverpool manager said. “We have had must-win games in my time here before and more often than not we have won them. We have big confidence we can get the job done.”
