Liverpool: 5 Positives and 5 Negatives from Draw vs. Manchester City

Liverpool picked up their first Premier League point of the season on Sunday with a 2-2 draw against champions Manchester City.  The first home league match in charge of the Reds was full of ups and downs for new manager Brendan Rodgers.

After a slow start Liverpool picked up the pace and dominated the game for long spells, twice leading before being pegged back by the away side.

Goals for Martin Skrtel and Luis Suarez were cancelled out by Yaya Toure and Carlos Tevez for City, both coming after defensive errors from Liverpool.

Here are five positives and five negatives that Rodgers and his team will take from the game.

Positive: The Full League Debut of Raheem Sterling

A 17-year-old making his full Premier League debut against the reigning champions?

Right then, a statement of intent from new boss Brendan Rodgers, who was clearly unhappy with the other options open to him with Stewart Downing left on the bench and Joe Cole seemingly still unavailable with injury.

Sterling showed plenty of ambition, fearlessness and skill to trouble the City defence, and almost claimed an assist for Fabio Borini, tracking back well throughout the game.

Of course he needs to continue working hard in training to improve his positional sense off the ball and movement in the final third, but the signs are there that he could be a top player.

Negative: The Injury to Lucas Leiva

The first moment of worry for Liverpool came just a couple of minutes into the match itself.

Lucas Leiva had apparently felt a twinge in his thigh prior to kickoff after striking a shot awkwardly in the warm-up, but the decision was taken to let him start anyway.

Three minutes in, the injury resurfaced, leading to Jonjo Shelvey taking Lucas' place in the heart of the midfield.

It didn't affect the flow of the game or the result ultimately, but with Lucas only recently back from a long-term injury, Leiva would have been anxious to get as many games under his belt as possible early on in the season.

Positive: Joe Allen's Seamless Transition to Liverpool Midfielder

Joe Allen put in a superb home debut performance for the Reds against Manchester City.

Effortlessly accurate passing, an appreciation for where his teammates wanted the ball and the ability to execute both short and longer passes to feet made him the fulcrum of the side, even playing from the deeper role he occupied after Lucas' injury.

Allen showed immediately why Rodgers was willing to shell out £15 million for him.

Negative: The Slippery Mistakes of Martin Skrtel

Two games, one very good performance—and two mistakes which cost goals.

Martin Skrtel won Liverpool's player of the season award for 2011-12 after a series of assured and confident displays.

Against Manchester City he looked back to something like his finest with a series of challenges and good reading of the game, and even popped up at the other end with a thumping header to open the scoring.

However, the other side of his game reared its head against West Brom in the previous game as he slipped, allowing Shane Long to run in on goal which eventually gave rise to a penalty and red card for Daniel Agger.

Against Manchester City he suffered a similar meltdown, playing a blind back-pass somewhere in the vague direction of goalkeeper Pepe Reina—letting Carlos Tevez in to score the winner and rob Liverpool of two points.

The great attributes of Skrtel are important, but so is the need to rid him of the defensive errors which have blighted the start of this campaign.

Positive: Finally a Threat from Set Pieces

Liverpool were all too often careless and wasteful from set pieces last season, with the expected dead-on delivery from Charlie Adam in particular not resulting in enough goals.

Therefore it was somewhere between a relief and excellent viewing for fans to see the Reds score twice off set pieces against Manchester City, one of last season's top defences.

Martin Skrtel headed in from a Steven Gerrard corner, before Luis Suarez scored direct from a free kick.

More of the same for the rest of the season would significantly aid Liverpool's goal scoring, which was well below par in the league last term.

Negative: Spurious in Front of Goal in Open Play

Great as though Liverpool's two goals were, the fact remains that they did miss a fair few good chances from open play.

Granted, it doesn't matter where goals come from as long as they do come—but as per the first game against West Brom, you can't score from set pieces every game and need to have the capacity to score from open play too.

Fabio Borini missed a good early chance from close range and Luis Suarez failed to connect solidly with a decent opening in the second half. Shots from range from Gerrard and Jonjo Shelvey also missed the target.

As with last season, this is an area that Liverpool need to improve on significantly.

Positive: The Passing, Passing, Passing, Passing

Manchester City started the stronger side in the game, with plenty of possession in the Reds' half of the pitch in the first 20 minutes, but thereafter the home side grew into the game and were the dominant force.

The triangles in midfield, the willingness to go backwards to keep hold of the ball and the gradual progression up the field—all the while making Manchester City chase the ball—were a delight to see for Brendan Rodgers as his Liverpool side started to work the way he wants them to in earnest.

Joe Allen was the chief controller for the home team and others followed his lead, Shelvey improving immeasurably from his poor performance against Hearts, and full-backs Glen Johnson and Martin Kelly were also heavily involved.

A fine first Anfield display of the season.

Negative: Inability to Hold on to a Lead

Liverpool took the lead twice against league champions Manchester City—at Anfield.

Brendan Rodgers wants playing at the famous old stadium to become "the longest 90 minutes of an opponent's life" again, as it was in the heydays of the 1980s.

To achieve that, Liverpool are going to have to defend more robustly, more stoutly and with more reliability than they managed against City.

Scoring twice against such a good side is hard enough; more now needs to be done to ensure such efforts are not in vain in the future.

Positive: Liverpool out-Played the Champions and Deserved to Win

No question about it, Liverpool were the better side on the day and City could not have had too many complaints had they been on the wrong end of an eventual 2-1 (or 3-2, had Shelvey's late effort found the top corner or Carroll's header drifted in) scoreline.

Good tactical deployment of the players involved, excellent off-the-ball pressing from the front and a fine first attempt at the penetrative passing game Liverpool want to become their hallmark once again outwitted and outperformed Manchester City's expensively-assembled team.

Regardless of the result in this instance, further performances of this ilk must be repeated next month—not just against Arsenal and Manchester United, but Sunderland and Norwich City too.

Those are the games Liverpool dropped off in too often last season, and which must deserve the same attention to detail, aggression and determination as the top sides this year.

Negative: Three Points at Anfield a Must as Often as Possible

Home is where the points must come from for Liverpool first and foremost.

Great possession, excellent team shape and exciting play are great—but Liverpool need more points than they did last season when on their own turf.

In terms of aiming for a Champions League place, the Reds realistically need to look at winning 14 of their home league encounters this season, in contrast to the pitiful six they amassed last term.

Manchester City is of course one of the most difficult opponents that Liverpool will face at Anfield, but in stone-cold points it is one fixture down, and only a draw to show for it.

If they beat Arsenal and Manchester United at home then the point will be looked upon as a decent one—but further failures to win and comparisons to last season will start to be played out in the national media.

Three points at Anfield has to be high on the list of priorities every league game.

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