Liverpool: Why the Christmas and New Year Fixtures Are Crucial

Barring any delays similar to this week, all teams play four matches over the next two weeks.

And the Christmas matches have invariably turned out to be crucial to the league standings almost every season.

Liverpool have, what many would call, a slightly easier run of games—but going by their form this season, this statement could turn out to be a foot-in-mouth statement.

The four games they play are: 

26th December: Blackpool (A)

29th December: Wolves (H)

1st January: Bolton (H) 

5th January: Blackburn (A)

In any other season, one would expect a team like Liverpool to get a full quota of 12 points on offer. Looking at the fixtures and taking into account the team's performance this season, 10 points in these fixtures would be a great result. 

A decent run in these matches might also help in getting a greater sense of stability to Roy Hodgson's job at Anfield, after repeated calls for his head after losses at various stages in this season.

The team currently lies in ninth place with 22 points, the same number of points as Newcastle, West Brom, Blackpool and Blackburn.

But the current run of games could help Liverpool break away from the crowd in the middle and be placed in Europa League spots in the top six or seven.

The teams currently occupying the sixth and seventh spots, Sunderland and Bolton respectively, face a couple of difficult matches in this run of games.

Sunderland faces Manchester United and Villa away while Bolton play Chelsea and Liverpool away. So, this could be the right opportunity for Liverpool to play catch up and get to the sixth position in the table which the manager, the players and more importantly, the fans would relatively be happy with. 

This could also be an opportunity to close the gap with the Spurs, who face a couple of tricky fixtures in away matches at the Villa Park and the Goodison Park.  

Furthermore, with Gerrard returning from injury, this could be the apt opportunity to get the Gerrard-Torres partnership going again. The partnership was starting to get back into shape before Gerrard was injured and Torres again went back to his formless displays.

It is time for Liverpool to finally get a stable starting 11 going again. 

Fans would be hoping that the arrival of Gerrard does not break the, which now seems, a stable Centre midfield partnership of Lucas and Meireles. Gerrard needs to play behind Torres, which is the position where he was most successful in the 2008-09 season. 

However, except the form of Torres, another problem with Liverpool seems to be the inconsistency of its defensive players. Konchesky needs to pull his socks up or make way for Fabio Aurelio or the returning from injury Daniel Agger.

Liverpool have been hit by the injury to the talismanic Carraghar, who might not be the defender that he was a couple of season ago, but his leadership in the back four has been missed badly.

It is now time for the new guard to step up and give the performances that are required to lift the team from the mid-table muddle it finds itself in.  

These matches are probably the last four games before the impact of the January transfer window begins to show on the league. With a number of teams expressing their interest in reinforcing their squads in January, getting points from these four games might become all the more important. 

Liverpool, in all probability, would also try and reinforce the squad in January. The arrival of a striker, a winger and some backup in defence would give the team a lot more stability and depth. Who knows? Probably the results of these matches help in showing to potential targets that Liverpool are not a team in decline, but a team which is on its way back up after a crisis.

Since the league has been so unpredictable and close this season, every match and every point earned has become that much more important.

So, hoping for a Liverpool fightback this holiday season to help it make a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the players and fans, or else it might be all over for this season.