Liverpool’s form continues, despite Sterling holiday
It’s now four wins out of their last five games for Liverpool and things look to be turning around at Anfield. All talk of a possible Brendan Rodgers sacking has dissipated with his team now sitting only four points off Champions League football.
Today’s win, though looking narrow on paper, could easily have been four or five for a team that strangely looked to be playing better before Sunderland were reduced to 10 men at the start of the second half.
Lazar Markovic’s man of the match performance and goal will also come as a source of relief to Brendan Rodgers as it looks like one of his signings may, finally, be stepping up to the mark. Even Mario Balotelli looked livelier than usual when he came on.
The curious case of Raheem Sterling jetting off to Jamaica for a mid-season holiday didn’t affect The Reds too much, thanks to the brilliance of Markovic, but the decision to allow him go remains questionable.
The 20-year-old has played a huge number of minutes already this season and, after the festive period, it is no surprise that Rodgers feels the need to rest him. But is there a need for him to go to Jamaica when his team mates are battling through lashing rain and gale force winds in Sunderland?
It would not be unfair to assume that this may cause some unrest in the squad. Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson have made the same amount of appearances as Sterling yet they were afforded no rest today.
Today’s win will take the focus off it for sure and, with five games coming up in the next 14 games for Liverpool it may prove to be a shrewd move from the manager.
Can this be the start of an Everton revival?
Going into today’s match on the back of four league losses in a row one would have suspected that run would increase to five as Everton came up against the champions but a resilient display saw them come away with a well deserved point.
What will please Roberto Martinez even more is how difficult Manchester City found it to break down the much-maligned Toffees defence that has leaked 34 goals this season.
There was more of a pep in the step of Everton today and they were even threatening City towards the end, rather than being camped on the edge of their box defending wave after wave of City attacks, as would be expected.
Everton’s next two league games see them take on West Brom and Crystal Palace, just one and two points behind them respectively.
Both West Brom and Palace won today and are on the traditional ‘new manager high’. Today really has to be a turning point for Everton as, otherwise, they will see themselves very much involved in a relegation scrap.
Tony Pulis is already weaving his magic at The Hawthorns
West Brom didn’t play particularly excellent today. They didn’t perform majorly differently to how they did under Alan Irvine. But, the difference: they got the job done, and it was an accomplishment typical of a Tony Pulis team.
Yet again it was Saido Berahino who came to The Baggies’ rescue, further underlining paramount importance of keeping him at the club. There has been talk of Pulis letting the 21-year-old go in order to free some finances to bring in new defensive-minded players.
The striker made it abundantly clear yet again today why such a decision would be crazy. Yes, West Brom do need some defensive reinforcement, but swapping a player that has already scored 14 times this season for that would be a mistake.
The relegation battle is too tight (only five points separate the bottom nine teams) to try to grind out results. West Brom need a player that has the ability to beat teams around them, as Berahino did today.
If Pulis’ side can do that, they will be safe.
Has the relegation battle ever been this close?
Wins for Leicester, Burnley, Crystal Palace and West Brom today saw the relegation battle take yet another twist.
At times during the season all of the bottom nine teams have shown form, even Leicester, who looked down and out a few weeks ago are now only three points from safety after two wins and a draw in their last three matches.
The only side that have shown consistently poor form is QPR, and that’s only when they play away from home. Harry Redkanpp’s side have now lost all ten of the away matches that they have played this season — the first team ever to do so.
Check the home form table and QPR sit in seventh, just four points off the Champions League places. Away from home Redknapp has deployed a lone striker system every game since the first awayday of the season.
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the system is not working. Despite trying to crowd the midfield QPR have only averaged more possession on the road than Hull City and Crystal Palace.
Naturally a team in a relegation battle will be more cautious on their travels but surely Redknapp has to take a risk soon and change his system completely. If not you’d have to imagine QPR will be on their way down.
How are Spurs so inconsistent?
After playing Chelsea off the pitch last week Tottenham looked a shadow of that team this evening as they surrendered a lead to Crystal Palace, slumping to a 2-1 defeat.
Before today they had won four of their last five league games and looked to be putting together some form. Previous to those five games they had had four losses, three wins and a draw in an eight game spell where they had, at times, looked well capable of claiming a top four spot and, at others, looked like a floundering mid-table outfit.
This evening they looked much slower and quite laboured, as if they couldn’t raise themselves to play Crystal Palace like they had raised themselves to play Chelsea.
It was a chance for Spurs to move into the top four and go four points ahead of Arsenal but they were not up to it at all and Palace deserved the victory.
With Sunderland and West Brom coming up in their next two matches Mauricio Pochettino’s side will be desperate for wins before a six game spell that sees them face Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United.
