Liverpool's Fringe Players
Are they good enough?
In the upshot of Liverpool contriving to be on the wrong side of the scoreline at the Amex on Monday night, I was genuinely skeptical upon seeing a statistic on Twitter. ‘Federico Chiesa has lost six consecutive matches in which he’s appeared for Liverpool,’ it read. Denial is the first stage of grief!
‘Federico is here to win,’ reads a line from the Italian winger’s catchy new chant which was going off for almost the entirety of the home draw with Arsenal. Perhaps the Anfield songwriters ought to have a rethink. In fairness, though, Chiesa enjoyed wins in every single one of his opening eight Liverpool matches. That’s a joint club-record in terms of a winning start.
Do either ends of that extreme spectrum mean absolutely anything? Probably not. Sir Alex Ferguson once infamously advised Harry Redknapp to take ‘unlucky charm’ Gareth Bale out of his Tottenham lineups when the Welshman was slogging his way through a 24-game winless streak in the Premier League. Redknapp ignored; Bale went on to become one of the greatest players ever produced on British shores.
Speaking of Ferguson: suffering a loss of form after securing the title was far from an alien concept for his successful Manchester United sides. Neither was the concept of rotation, despite the typical media babbling over the Reds ‘putting the integrity of the league into question’. In his last season in Manchester, United won just one of their last four once Mancini’s City had surrendered their crown, with the Red Devils often making a mountain of changes.
Likewise, the 2006/07 campaign was a similar story for United once they’d dealt with their business early. They picked up a solitary point from their final two matches and even lost at home to a West Ham side who survived on the final day by the absolute skin of their teeth. The hosts’s starting eleven contained Alan Smith, who clocked just 284 minutes in the whole of that league season. Kieran Richardson and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer were also irregulars. Fergie had left Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes, Nemanja Vidic and Ryan Giggs all on the substitutes bench. Crime when Arne does it though, right?!
So, Liverpool have collected one point from a possible nine and I wouldn’t be staking much on Slot’s men, at half pace, turning over Palace on Sunday. The real main event at the weekend is the trophy presentation. Succeeding that, of course, is Monday’s grand parade. If Carlsberg did Bank Holiday weekends.
Over this little period, three LFC players have been granted their maiden league starts of the season: Harvey Elliott, Wataru Endo and Federico Chiesa. Jarell Quansah has also stepped in to start just his second and third league match of the season as a *central defender*, Stamford Bridge was the first time since the opening day, where that had happened.
Via a 2017 StatsBomb study: “Periods of high rotation do seem to have coincided with worse results for many teams.” Well of course. Chucking in lads on the periphery against some of the country’s leading sides is hardly going to make you favourites. Liverpool have been fielding lineups that you’d never seen before and never, ever, will again. For what it’s worth, I actually perceived the narrow 3-2 loss at Eredivisie champions PSV Eindhoven, in the final UCL League Phase clash, as a great achievement. Jayden Danns and James McConnell started that one, Andy Robertson played as a central defender for the first time; a number of academy kids made their club debut, too.