Ludogorets vs. Liverpool: Lessons Learned from Champions League Game
This bizarre Liverpool season doesn’t feature a Champions League exit just yet, as the Reds earned the point to keep themselves alive in the competition with a 2-2 draw against Ludogorets in Sofia.
The result ensures that a win over Basel at Anfield in two weeks’ time will send them through to the last 16, but the concession of a late equaliser left a bad taste in the mouth of an evening which started terribly.
An error from Simon Mignolet allowed Dani Abalo to open the scoring after just three minutes, but Liverpool showed character and fought back to lead at the break thanks to Rickie Lambert and Jordan Henderson.
However with three points in sight, Georgi Terziev headed home from a flick-on to earn the hosts a point. It wasn’t enough to keep them in the competition, and nor was it that meaningful to Liverpool’s prospects in it. But it just took away a large slice of the feelgood factor that the Reds are desperate to claim.
Here are some lessons from what could be an important evening, though:
A Small Step for Progress, but the Bigger Picture Remains Tough to Look At
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Liverpool’s players and their manager will talk about character and an improvement in performance after this. And they will be right to do so, but their play was still nowhere near the levels of a team looking to go far in the Champions League.
The selection of Steven Gerrard and Lambert—with a combined age of 66—as the most attacking two players was one of the stranger decisions made by Brendan Rodgers during his Liverpool career, particularly as he has frequently been a boss to call upon youth throughout his Reds reign.
At least that one had some merit to it though, with the pair looked at to try and retain the ball—something they did pretty well—but elsewhere the same old defensive frailties were evident.
This was a small victory for progress—and right now that has to be celebrated—but the bigger picture remains and is dominating everything.
Liverpool Are Somehow Still in the Champions League
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It might sound trite, but given everything they’ve experienced in the past few weeks and months the fact that Liverpool have a chance to make it into the last 16 of the Champions League when they welcome Basel to Anfield in 13 days’ time really is something that they can celebrate.
Team selections and formations might remain something of a mess, but this result will at least reinforce something that no self-respecting football team should ever be without—character.
They’ve been dragged through the mud this season, but they can still come out with something to show for it.
Raheem Sterling Finally Finds His Feet
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Perhaps it was something to do with being stationed close to the comparatively slow Lambert and Gerrard, but Raheem Sterling seemed to find his extra yard of pace here.
He was bright and always looking to run at and expose the home defenders, none more so than for the goal he so expertly laid on for Jordan Henderson.
With the Liverpool team completely shorn of pace everywhere else the onus was on him to deliver, and for the first time in months he did just that.
Rickie Lambert Has Earned the Right to Stay in the Side
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After scoring in the defeat to Crystal Palace and now this draw, there are signs that Rickie Lambert’s goals are slowly starting to improve Liverpool’s fortunes. Now he just needs the chance to score some more.
He’s far from perfect obviously, but he’s the best thing the Reds have got right now. And if he can use his many qualities to help this struggling side in the weeks and months to come then he might just get closer and closer to his “dream” of being the Reds’ No. 1 forward.
It seems a strange thing to say, but Liverpool are relying on him right now.
Cristiano Ronaldo Won’t Be Quite so Disliked on Merseyside Any More
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Liverpool are now the only side that Cristiano Ronaldo has failed to score against in his last 18 matches for club and country, and the Reds were the main beneficiaries of his goal against Basel—which has handed them a golden Champions League chance.
Win against the Swiss on Matchday 6 and they’ll be through, and if you’d have offered Reds fans that back at the beginning of the season they’d have taken it—even if they’d change pretty much everything else they’re currently seeing.
