Benteke's First 3 Liverpool Games Stand a Warning to Brendan Rodgers

Liverpool rolled the dice this summer, opting to drop £32.5 million on Aston Villa forward Christian Benteke, eventually sealing a protracted deal just a week before the commencement of the new Premier League season. The Belgian would join Roberto Firmino, Danny Ings and Divock Origi in the new striking recruits section at Anfield, and being the most expensive and best-known of the set, the pressure for him to succeed became instantaneously suffocating.

Despite his reputation preceding him as a powerful, bullish forward with a technically sound ground game—the full package, if you will—there were legitimate concerns over how he might mesh with Liverpool and their way of playing. He might be better with his feet than most but his main strength remains his aerial prowess, and the Reds—joint-lowest crossers in the league in 2014-15, per WhoScored.com—would need to adapt their style to accommodate him.

When spending that much on a new recruit, it’s not usual to have to make sacrifices in order to allow him to succeed. Worries over whether Brendan Rodgers would indeed flex his system to accentuate Benteke’s talents inside it were rife in July, but after three league games we’re perhaps in a better position to assess how he’s being used.

Here, B/R breaks down his first three Premier League starts and analyses how the Belgian has slotted in to life at Liverpool so far.

Stoke City

Liverpool didn’t offer much in terms of attacking productivity at The Britannia Stadium, mustering just three shots on target and rarely troubling goalkeeper Jack Butland. The winner scored by Philippe Coutinho—a long-range pearler which perhaps could have been saved—represented a flash of quality in an otherwise dull game.

For the most part, Liverpool spent their afternoon in a 4-2-3-1 formation with Jordan Henderson and James Milner in a pivot. It provided predictably stodgy football, leaving Coutinho consistently attempting to feed Benteke passes, either to feet or in behind the defence, and they felt both forced and unpractised.

There wasn’t a tonne of space to manipulate, and one of Benteke’s major weaknesses is timing runs in behind the defence—he eventually stopped trying to do it at Aston Villa after being caught offside 3-4 times per game. The strategy proved unsuccessful, and the Reds were bailed out when Rodgers switched to a 4-3-3 late on, introducing Emre Can in the holding role to allow two midfield runners forward, and Coutinho gallivanted into space before firing home with minutes to spare.

Credit: FOX HD

Build-up issues hindered the approach here; Jordon Ibe had a rough day and struggled to dig out any sort of final ball, Adam Lallana looked wretched in possession and both Milner and Henderson were restricted by their roles in the double pivot. Just 12 crosses were delivered (compared to Stoke’s 19 playing without a target man), per WhoScored.com, with Ibe and Lallana—the wide players—offering four between them.

Rodgers was absolutely right to take the pragmatic approach and try to grind out a result here; the ghosts of May 24, 2015 would likely still have been fresh in the memory, and with many understandably surprised the Ulsterman kept his job after ending the 2014-15 campaign in such dismal fashion, avoiding defeat was a simplistic but understandable goal.

The focus, therefore, came on the defensive structure of the team, with the forward line something of an afterthought. Rodgers’ thinking was that if they could nick the win, then great, but the immediate goal would be to keep a clean sheet. Dejan Lovren finally stepped up and delivered a reasonable performance, helping get Liverpool off to the perfect start.

AFC Bournemouth

Against AFCB, under the Monday Night Football lights, is where we saw Benteke come to life in a Liverpool shirt and truly threaten at his new home.

The Cherries play some of the best football you’ll ever see from a newly promoted side, and, fearless as they are, instigated a number of periods of possession and pressure, pushing and probing for a goal. Tommy Elphick had one ruled out harshly for a foul on Lovren at a corner, Simon Francis gained good ground down the right and Callum Wilson’s snappy pressing up front set the tone for a stern examination.

Credit: Canal+

With Liverpool starting from a slightly deeper position, then, Benteke thrived. The Reds opted to utilise longer diagonal balls out of defence (usually from Henderson) aimed for the Belgian, which he brought down with aplomb and began to push forward. He strayed wide left quite a lot to find a pocket to receive the ball, showing a trait he utilised a lot at Villa: Pick on the full-back who is half your size.

His touch and control were spot on, and he linked play extremely well after receiving, showing the patience to pick the right pass rather than forcing the difficult one. He was far more involved in the game moving from back to front, and the rewarding goal would follow soon too.

Credit: Canal+

It should have been disallowed. It was the very epitome of offside, per the current rulebook. But what Benteke’s first Liverpool goal did spell out in plain writing was that, unsurprisingly, a big man such as himself still thrives when the ball is crossed into him. Tapping home at the back post launched his Anfield career beautifully, and he hit the bar late on from another cross, coming inches from sealing the result with a 2-0 scoreline.

He held the ball up and wound the clock down to finish the game as AFCB pressed for an equaliser—a strong presence Liverpool have often lacked despite employing Rickie Lambert and Mario Balotelli in 2014-15.

Arsenal

Arsenal away will feel like a missed opportunity for Benteke; he fluffed a golden chance in the first half to put Liverpool ahead and slashed at several others, eventually coming up short.

Given how easily he’s worked Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker over in the past, he’d have been licking his lips at the chance to face off against their deputies Calum Chambers and Gabriel Paulista. The former had a rough half, losing most aerial battles and struggling to track the Belgian, but they couldn’t spring the advantage with a goal.

Credit: Canal+

Once again, the chief mode of attack was via Coutinho (as it should be), but playing nominally from the left and cutting in, he and Benteke were feeding each other on the ground more often than not. Rodgers started Firmino on the right, who didn’t get too involved, tracking back well but hardly holding the width or dazzling in chance creation—though it was the Brazilian who fed in the low ball for Benteke’s big miss just before half-time.

We saw a lot of Benteke dropping in and interacting, and he tried a few runs that split the centre-back and full-back on the right side, but no end-product. There were no headed chances on goal for him—his forte, don’t forget—and while he again proved he’s far more technically capable than anything Andy Carroll could hope to be, the impact on the scoresheet standings lacked.

The final 15 minutes, where Arsenal were on the front foot searching for a winner, saw Benteke lose an uncommon amount of balls up to him as the Reds were trying to break; he was surprisingly ineffectual, even when warding off and holding up.

“He’ll be disappointed he didn’t score but his overall contribution was outstanding," Rodgers told LiverpoolFC.com after the game. “He was unfortunate not to score in the first half—it was a great ball in by Firmino, he’s got a touch on it and Petr Cech makes a good save."

What to Conclude?

Benteke’s first three games in a Liverpool shirt stand a microcosm of what to expect from him should Rodgers continue to tweak and play with his team and approach. In two of the three fixtures something has worked against the Belgian—be it the conservative approach vs. Stoke or the narrower system vs. Arsenal—and in the one game he did receive appropriate service, he scored and hit the woodwork.

Benteke has made a career out of thriving in the face of little service—most of his Villa team-mates were several rungs below him on the quality ladder—but both Paul Lambert (at least to start with) and Tim Sherwood knew that feeding him constantly would produce goals. Lambert had Matt Lowton swing cross after cross in for him from the right, while Sherwood asked Leandro Bacuna to do the same.

The quality in that team lacked, but they focused all of their attacking energies on delivering the ball to him; he was the focal point, the end-game and everything in between.

It’s encouraging that Benteke has shown willingness to try and change his game, to interact with Coutinho and make the runs the Brazilian asks for. He’s always been able to drop in, but springing the line and surging in behind has never been a talent of his despite possessing surprising speed.

But despite showing partial spark, his most effective game (against AFCB) and his most promising moment (against Arsenal) were in situations where the ball was crossed. He’s had to endure a pretty poor start to the season from Jordon Ibe and a very bad two games by Adam Lallana, so that hasn’t helped, but the evidence is there.

Play short to Benteke and he’ll be a 6/10 performer and a one-in-three scorer; play to his strengths—cross to him, feed him—and he’ll give you sevens and eights with a one-in-two ratio.

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