Festive Period Provides Premier League Promise for Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool

They nearly lost at home. They nearly suffered what would have been an eighth defeat in 17 Premier League matches. And yet in rescuing an 11th-hour point from the match against Arsenal, Liverpool gave more than a hint that their season could be saved.

It hardly needs adding that the last one was a hard act for all at Anfield—and not least manager Brendan Rodgers—to follow.

In not only finishing second but mounting their most convincing challenge for the domestic title for 24 years, Liverpool returned to the forefront of the English game and, of course, qualified for the Champions League. 

It was time to strengthen the squad and prepare for greater expectations. But instead, Liverpool were weakened, as any club losing Luis Suarez in his prime would be. Had any player ever contributed more to a Premier League club's season than Suarez did in 2013-14? Not in my opinion.

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Not even Eric Cantona, or Cristiano Ronaldo in the years before he left Manchester United for Real Madrid, or even Thierry Henry at his Arsenal peak.

So a difficult task was made harder for Rodgers. Harder still by his own hand (or that of the committee, prominently featuring himself, which decides who Liverpool should buy) when he engaged Mario Balotelli, presumably believing he could teach the Italy striker such attributes as maturity, team sense and consistency.

And yet harder, though no fault of his own, when Suarez's erstwhile partner, Daniel Sturridge, sustained an injury that even now, with nearly half the season gone, persists.

Rodgers had to find a different way of playing, and he did it bravely in the face of criticism and an increasingly strident critical questioning of whether the young Northern Irishman was, after all, the manager best fitted for the job of restoring Liverpool's former glories.

He shuffled what was left of his pack, used three central defenders, stuck Jordan Henderson wide on the right, asked more of Steven Gerrard's lingering creativity and employed Raheem Sterling as an unusual kind of centre-forward.

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False, deep, emergency: Whatever description might be applied to the quick and clever 20-year-old's role, it worked at Bournemouth, and Liverpool were in the Capital One Cup semi-finals.

If that dispelled a little of the gloom that had descended over Anfield as Liverpool were eliminated from the Champions League by Basel, it seemed the pre-Christmas period would bring renewed disillusion as Arsenal took a 2-1 lead on the ground where they had been thrashed last season.

However, in the remaining 25 minutes, we saw the Liverpool of last season. Minus Suarez and Sturridge, yes, but that was the only reason it took them until the stoppage time to equalise.

Although Rodgers might have been slightly exaggerating when he argued afterwards that his men had played better than in beating Arsenal 5-1 in February, it wasn't the craziest statement, and he was entitled to say: "Slowly we are getting back to where we want to be. Our performance was outstanding, the passing, intensity and the pressing."

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You could hear the roars of agreement from the crowd in the buildup to Martin Skrtel's brave header. 

It came towards the end of a weekend that hinted at an interesting and open contest for fourth place.

Not only did Arsenal display, in letting Skrtel dominate their defence, much of the flaccidity that enabled Stoke City to build a three-goal lead before half-time earlier in the month, but West Ham United maintained their impressive form, Southampton returned to winning ways, and Tottenham Hotspur joined the race, drawing level on points with their north London rivals.

Liverpool now have the same opportunity. Before January and the contrasting cup assignments of Wimbledon away and Chelsea over two legs, they face three league matches—away to Burnley and at home to Swansea City and Leicester City.

In this period, the nine points separating Rodgers' team from Sam Allardyce's fourth-placed West Ham could conceivably be reduced.

If, as Rodgers claims and the crowd noise suggests, they have their impetus back, the recent farewell to the Champions League might prove temporary.