Liverpool's Comeback Win Shows Mental Resolve Brendan Rodgers Has Brought

Liverpool might not have been at their flowing, fluid best against Fulham on Wednesday night, but the Reds showed two vital characteristics that any squad needs to battle for honours: mental resilience and self-belief.

The Reds might have been playing the side bottom of the Premier League table, but Kopites have often seen that this matters little—those points will still slip away when they are needed the most. Two hilarious, embarrassing, excruciatingly painful defensive errors last night could easily have—and probably did, in some quarters—led to nothing more than thoughts of "here we go again."

But not this time, not with this group of players.

Not with Brendan Rodgers in charge.

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For it is Rodgers, in his own inimitable, positive, radiating style who has set about to improve not only the team, but the individuals within.

Jordan Henderson, it was said 18 months or two years ago, lacked confidence. When he played well he was good, but a failed pass or shot led to a safety-first approach thereafter. Liverpool's defence, for the past couple of seasons, seemed to either keep a clean sheet or crumble after letting in one. The rest of the team would follow suit and the points would be out of reach.

Everywhere in the team one cares to look, now, gives examples of how Rodgers has cajoled and caressed every ounce of ability and effort out of the players, and then gone even further and shown them how they themselves can still improve.

Henderson. Raheem Sterling. Luis Suarez. Jon Flanagan. Daniel Sturridge—he perhaps most of all. The England striker is very much now a goal-a-game centre-forward.

Those players, and others beside them, now not only want to win each game, but believe they can, no matter what setbacks they receive during the 90 minutes. They have a focus, a game plan, a tactical idea of how to go about their business, but more importantly, they have the self-belief that if things are going wrong, as they were with only 20 minutes left at Craven Cottage, they are good enough to put them right.

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Contrast the Fulham comeback win with a similar scenario from two years ago: in March, Liverpool travelled to Queens Park Rangers, only off the foot of the table on goal difference, looking for three points to push them closer to the Champions League race.

Liverpool led 2-0 with just a quarter of an hour remaining, but a team filled with the likes of Charlie Adam, Sebastian Coates, Stewart Downing and, yes, current midfielder Henderson, succumbed to an incredible, improbable late 3-2 defeat. One goal went in, another followed, and Liverpool crumpled entirely.

Confidence, inner strength, belief in their own ability or merely panic; call it want you want but it comes back to the same thing: mental strength.

Rodgers has given that to these players and that, allied to the talent they have and the tactical plan Rodgers brings for any given game, is what is giving Liverpool the edge at present.

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They'll need it more than ever over the final months of the season as the big-pressure games mount and the prizes at stake grow ever larger...but as long as they've got it, the team will be capable of pushing right to the end in any given game.

Take a look at Steven Gerrard's last-minute goal celebration and take a moment to think of what he believes is possible this season.

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