It's been a little while since I put anything on here so there's a bit to catch up on LFC related, first and foremost we've earned nine points out of nine and currently sit top. Looking at our fixtures I would have been happy with six or seven points by now so to have achieved the maximum is impressive. Last season it took us eight games to earn nine points, this season we've done it in three matches. And of course it's always nice to beat Man Utd, and it's always fun to defeat David Moyes, I think this is why they invented the phrase 'killing two birds with one stone'.
All three games have been 1-0 with Daniel Sturridge getting the goal, but that's where the similarities end. All three goals have been very different and so have all three performances. Against Stoke we passed well and played very positively, against Villa we tailed off dramatically after half time and against Man Utd it was a case of scoring early and keeping our heads and working hard as a unit. Three different types of victories but all pleasing. Our next four fixtures are Swansea, Southampton, Sunderland and Crystal Palace, all winnable games. Though football being football we won't win them all, it's just not how it goes, but if we could manage three victories from the four encounters we'll be set up nicely for a big season. Our good start so far rightly increases expectation but it shouldn't lead us to believe we'll win the title, there's too far to go yet and we haven't proven we have the consistency needed to achieve anything like that. But three wins and three clean sheets is the prefect start and long may it continue.
We've brought in a couple more defenders, Tiago Ilori and Mamadou Sakho at a total cost of around £25 million. Currently we have Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel, Kolo Toure plus the two new recruits which seems a bit excessive to me for a side without the extra fixtures of European football. I think Skrtel was probably on the verge of a switch to Napoli before his performance yesterday, though I wouldn't be overly surprised if that still happened. Ilori is one for the future but Sakho is ready now and will have joined with the promise of first team football. Toure has settled in quickly, meaning once he recovers from his injury Brendan Rogers has a big decision to make about who plays, but no manager will ever complain about having too many options, competition is healthy and will hopefully lead to raised performances from those chosen.
Victor Moses also looks like joining on loan from Chelsea in what at first seems like a strange move but after a bit of a think it makes perfect sense. We've tried and failed to sign attackers Henrik Mikhataryan, Diego Costa and Willian so far, showing that Rogers clearly feels the squad needs more forward options. Having failed to secure any of these signatures we're left with two choices - panic buy and over pay (prime example being Andy Carroll), or start the season with the squad a forward short, like the first half of last season until Sturridge arrived. We dropped too many points before Christmas and were left playing catch up from too early on and consequently missed out on a European place. Finding a third option of bringing a loan player in is without doubt the right way to go. As far as I understand it it's a straightforward loan deal with no option to buy, meaning we're not looking at Moses long term, he's here for a year. This gives us time to scout properly for a genuinely top class attacker without leaving the squad short. I'd also think that bringing Moses in on loan means we have no real interest in bringing Tom Ince back to the club, as had been suggested in some quarters.
The League Cup victory against Notts County was the perfect example of why you shouldn't pick first team players in such a fixture, three injuries taking the shine off what was a really well fought cup tie. The difficulty of the game was also the perfect example of why you do need to pick first team players in the competition, it's a bit of a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' scenario. I think overall it was good for the players to have experienced being ahead, being pegged back and pushing on to win, without having the pressure of dropping any league points. Hopefully County's comeback from 2-0 down will serve as a helpful warning to us early on in the season.
The draw for the next round sees us visit Old Trafford, which will be feisty to say the least. Visiting fans are allocated more seats for cup games, add an evening kick off into the mix and it gets more explosive, throw in the return of Luis Suarez (assuming he doesn't move on today) and you have dynamite. Bring it on. Without European football we have two cup competitions we can win this season and we should be having a real go at them both. If we're to win the League Cup then somebody has to knock out Man Utd along the way, why shouldn't it be us? What would have made it better for me though is if Brendan Rogers had come out with the following statement - "It's a tough draw, the hardest we could get, suspiciously so, especially considering we won the competition two seasons ago, it's as if they don't want us to win it again, I only hope the balls in the draw weren't marked, it can't be a coincidence". Of course he couldn't actually say that though could he? They would have been the words of a paranoid manager who has found himself in a job that's far beyond his capabilities......
