Four Key Points From Liverpool’s Draw With Hull
Liverpool completed another difficult week to their season with a disappointing scoreless draw against Steve Bruce’s Hull City to follow up their hammering by the European Champions Real Madrid last Wednesday.
Here are four key points we can take from Liverpool’s draw against Hull City:
- Mario Balotelli – The Italian striker is low on confidence, highlighted by his missed opportunity in the final minute that could have made him a hero, and the style of play Rodgers is playing is not suiting the former Manchester City striker. Balotelli worked hard against Hull but didn’t start to look threatening until Rickie Lambert came on in the second half to support him. Rodgers has to play Balotelli with a strike-partner and hopefully the Reds’ boss realises this after seeing the Italian and Lambert combine against Hull.
- Best Team – Rodgers must select his best team unless he is forced into making changes because he needs to get some consistency and fluency in his team’s play and the constant changes are having a negative effect. Rodgers made three changes for the game against Hull and Henderson’s energy was sorely missed.
- Coutinho – Must play more often, the little Brazilian is such a clever player that can open up a defence and Liverpool rarely threatened Hull’s defence until Coutinho’s introduction. Rodgers is trying to fit the likes of Markovic and Lallana into his team but he needs to play Coutinho more often.
- Glen Johnson – With Manquillo coming in for the England defender, it looks like the writing is on the wall for Johnson and he could be on the way out of Anfield soon.