Stoke 0-1 Liverpool: Back With A Win

When the Premier League fixture list was announced a few weeks ago, it was met with many a grimace from Liverpool supporters. The very first game of the season saw us return to the Britannia, the scene of our 6-1 humiliation at the end of the last campaign. As it turned out, however, it was a blessing in disguise; Liverpool exorcised the demons of last season by overcoming Stoke 1-0 courtesy of an outrageous strike from Coutinho. Although it was by no means a perfect performance, the result may well prove symbolic – we’ve left 2014/15 behind us, and are capable of big things this time around.

Amongst the positives was a fairly solid defensive performance. Although there were a few nervy moments (for a couple of awful seconds I was convinced Johnson was going to smash it home), on the whole Liverpool’s back line contained Stoke convincingly. Dejan Lovren deserves a special mention here – he looked confident and assured for once, winning headers and clearing the ball with apparent ease. Even his positioning, so often the thing that lets him down, was pretty much spot on most of the time. His central partner Martin Skrtel was also decent; dodgy underweighted backpasses to Mignolet aside, he did well. The much talked-about Joe Gomez also impressed – Stoke appeared to be targeting him due to lack of experience, but on the whole he stood up well to the test. Clyne was a little disappointing at first, wasting possession multiple times with misplaced passes, but soon grew into the game. As well as being solid defensively, he made some very promising runs forward to create space for Ibe: rather than overlapping he showed a desire to cut inside into the box, and this stretched Stoke’s defence. The Potters had scored at least once in their previous 12 Premier League matches, so keeping them out at their own ground is an achievement that should not be underestimated.

This newfound defensive assuredness did, however, come at a price. Presumably anxious to avoid conceding too many after the previous humiliation, Rodgers had clearly instructed his team to play with a degree of caution. Thus, chances were at a premium – the creative spark was very much lacking for a lot of the game, with Benteke looking very isolated for most of the match. Lallana, Ibe and Coutinho were the three carrying the main responsibility for chance creation in the first half, and none of them were at their best; Lallana barely had the ball, Coutinho was ambitious but wasteful and Ibe was regularly too slow to cross. It looked like a 0-0er for much of the match – had it not been for two astute changes from Rodgers, this may well have been the case. Renowned for making bizarre switches last season, this came as a relief to fans. His decision to bring on Can allowed Milner and Henderson to push further forward, thus piling more pressure on a Stoke side who were dropping further and further back. Firmino then entered the fray, immediately showing his talents – he was a real handful, keeping the Stoke defence very busy. This allowed more space for others, and Coutinho capitalised in full from this extra room by scoring a truly unbelievable goal.

There is a case to be made for this being the little Brazilian’s best strike yet in a Liverpool shirt, and considering he was shortlisted for goal of the season last year that’s saying something. A long way from goal, he got over the ball perfectly – the resulting shot flew sublimely into the top corner, the perfect combination of power and precision. Butland was helpless. The timing of the strike was also excellent; Stoke were given precious little time to recover, and Liverpool were able to see out the remaining few minutes without serious incident.

Of course, we cannot rely on Coutinho scoring those sort of goals every week (although they’re getting much more regular!). Moving forwards, Liverpool definitely need to up the intensity of their game and improve upon their chance creation. However, this is early days, and a win to start the season is truly excellent. It was particularly important after the disappointing end to the last campaign – this really shows the turning of a new leaf, a fresh start. It is also worth noting that when Firmino is fit enough to start, chance creation should be less of a problem; even in his 15 minute cameo, the new man showed a glimpse of how much skill he possesses. With other big teams tripping up this weekend, we look like we might be on for my predicted competitive Premier League season: I think that we’ll still have 6 teams in the title race at Christmas, and I believe that we’ll be one of them. Looking at our squad, particularly our attackers, there is no doubt that we have the players to challenge for the title like we did two years ago. The question is, can we put in the performances? To me, the signs are encouraging. Roll on Bournemouth!

-James Martin

Follow me on Twitter @JamesMartin013