Liverpool FC: 5 Ways Liverpool Can Be Better at Anfield Next Season

Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers need to be better at Anfield at any cost if they are to have any chance of qualifying for the Champions League. The Reds will be out of the lucrative competition for the third consecutive season this year.

If they fail to qualify for it again it will seriously hamper the club's power to keep its ambitions to look towards the top of the table. Financial Fair Play also kicks in from the next season starting in August and John Henry and FSG have some serious thinking to do.

Liverpool's abysmal record at Anfield in the last season need not be reiterated. The numbers don't need to be revealed again to illustrate the gravity of the issue of a once fortress becoming a hunting ground for points for any opponent. 

A number of records were broken for all the wrong reasons under Kenny Dalglish. Draw after draw at Anfield sent the frustration levels through the roof for many of the fans. If Rodgers has to succeed where Dalglish failed, he will not have to apply rocket science to point to home form that needs to be improved.

Thus, let us take a look at five ways that the Reds can implement to be better at Anfield next season.

Relentless Pursuit of the Ball

Pressing from the outset was a regular feature at Anfield during Rafael Benitez’s time as manager. This was not pursued by Kenny Dalglish. Even Roy Hodgson’s team demonstrated the benefits of doing this when the Reds, despite being down to 10 men, took the lead against Arsenal in the manager’s first home game in the league.

Dalglish advocated pass and move. The flaw with Liverpool’s approach was that they built attack after attack too quickly without conjuring a good number of clear-cut opportunities as a percentage of all chances created. Ball retention was not a priority.

The result was Liverpool having a high number of corners through the season. This would have been a good thing if Liverpool were scoring through set-pieces which they unfortunately were not. All this also meant that pressing was not an option as pass and move without retaining the ball for good periods wears players down. They are human after all.

With Brendan Rodgers, Liverpool will prioritize ball retention. Thus they will be able to keep pressure as the second priority at Anfield with resting periods afforded in between when the ball possession is with them. 

Pressing high up the pitch is adopted by world-class teams like Spain and Barcelona. It was also adopted very well by Arsenal during the first half-a-dozen years of the new millennium to great affect. Thus even teams at the top rely on taking advantage by forcing mistakes rather than purely demonstrating their superiority in class. 

Someone has stated well that there is no substitute for hard work. Liverpool will have to do the same under Rodgers by building fitness levels and pressing high up the pitch on a regular basis at least at Anfield if not away too.

Cutting Edge Play

The Reds missed Steven Gerrard, his through-balls and his cross-field ‘Hollywood’ balls when their captain was injured. They also missed Luis Suarez’s clever movement when he was serving his ban in eight of the 38 league games.

These players provided Liverpool with a certain cutting edge. There are few others who can do that or at least who have shown that ability in the present squad of Liverpool. Rodgers will be looking to bring that flair and vision among the Liverpool players to help create reasonable chances that can be converted.

There is no use just notching up numbers for shots on goal or chances created as fans saw last season with Liverpool.

Jordan Henderson, Jonjo Shelvey and up to an extent Lucas Leiva are ones who may be adding value to the passing next season. Danny Pacheco and Joe Cole might be players from whom improvement in movement can be hoped for.

The synchronicity between the passing and movement will be key to Rodgers getting his team to play slick football. Both good passing and movement were absent in the final third for the Reds last season.

Everything was very static. Like the team under Dalglish, Rodgers’ side will also presumably have good possession. It is “penetration” that he talks about so often that will be vital.

Playing Players on Merit and Increasing Competition

Pepe Reina has hinted at leaving Liverpool Football Club too often for my liking. If a player wants to leave I believe he should get his wish. To reiterate the cliché—no one is bigger than the club. Reina was hardly earning his salary last season with poor performances throughout the season.

I can’t help feel that Dalglish did not drop him because he feared he would leave. In my opinion, Alexander Doni should have had more chances or for that matter even Brad Jones or Peter Gulacsi.

A similar case could be made for Maxi Rodriguez playing more instead of Stewart Downing or Dirk Kuyt getting more chances than Jordan Henderson on the right. To be fair to Kenny Dalglish, once Albert Aquilani and Raul Meireles were not available for selection, Dalglish became reliant on Downing, Adam and Henderson to come up with performances and consistency. Unfortunately that did not happen.

I think keeping the players on their toes by giving them competition and the opportunity to earn their place will raise performances. It would have done for Reina last season and it will surely do for Henderson, Adam and Downing this one.

Consistency in Tactics

Rodgers’ first task will be to get the players playing his way. Once he is able to do this, I think he will be better off accustoming them to a set formation rather than tinkering every now and then to show off his tactical prowess.

The skeletal foundation and basis of Rodgers’ strategy should remain the same. As football fans worldwide saw with Spain, Vicente Del Bosque had one strategy employed through the tournament. There were only few changes made here and there for different matches to counter different oppositions having varying strengths.

Liverpool players last season looked dazed and almost as if they did not want to play or be there with the constant changing of plans for the team and players too. Dalglish did manage to outsmart teams such as Manchester City at times but his tactics failed on the larger landscape.

Rodgers should keep it simple and consistent while he is still very new to handling a club of the pedigree of Liverpool for the very first time.

And Finally, Being Clinical in Front of Goal

It cannot be stressed enough if you are a Liverpool supporter. Scoring 47 goals in 38 games is never going to get a side in touch with their ambitions in the Barclays Premier League at least.

The Reds need a proven goal scorer, a 20-goal-a-season man, a fox-in-the-box type of player; the clichés just have not stopped ringing. I am sure Brendan Rodgers has a plan to fix this. Fabio Borini has been linked with the Reds. Borini’s signing, if it does happen, will not add a lot to the present squad.

What I see Rodgers doing is getting the same bunch of players creating better chances and scoring a larger percentage of them than last season. One of the things that will be laid emphasis on will undoubtedly be getting more people in the box time and time again.

Too often players didn’t show a desire to get in the box last season. What was more, it was not like that they were busy shooting from outside the box either. There were bound to be so few goals with an approach like that.     

Liverpool players were not misfiring to the extent that the stats reveal. It was just that teams such as Manchester City and Manchester United created far better chances for their strikers to finish. 

So to become more clinical is not only the responsibility of the forwards in Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll but also that of the providers in Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Charlie Adam.