Liverpool scraped a 1-0 win against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light, with Lazar Markovic getting the ball into the net in the ninth minute. Those three points mean that Liverpool are on 32 points and closing in on the top four and Champions League football. While the win was much needed after a setback against Leicester, Liverpool could’ve quite easily thrashed the Wearside outfit if they had been slightly more clinical than they were throughout the game; the number of opportunities at Sunderland which spurned were shocking.
The Merseyside team took a total of 21 shots and created plenty of goalscoring opportunities, which is enormous considering that they had no more than 53% of possession. However, only saw four shots hit the target and only one ended up in the back of the net. Philippe Coutinho, Marković, Jordan Henderson, Steven Gerrard, Fabio Borini, and even Mario Balotelli, who was brought on in the latter stages of the game, all had chances which could’ve seen them celebrating moments later. However, for certain Liverpool players, this game in general was a huge opportunity to get back into the side and cement a place in the starting eleven. And unlike the missed goalscoring opportunities, the players, in the most part, put in a positive performance.
Lazar Marković’s rise continues as the Serbian attacker scored his first Premier League goal for Liverpool after persisting his way through the Sunderland defence. Initially his performances lacked bite and strength, but in recent weeks, he has shown why Brendan Rodgers dared to pay £20 million for him. This was a game tipped to be an important game to continue his way up, and what better than to cap a man of the match performance with a deserved goal? The 20 year old sensation was unlucky to not score more goals; a stunning acrobatic volley that would’ve been worthy of the goal of the month at least had it gone in, ricocheted against the crossbar while the bobble-hatted Liverpool fans sat back down in awe, asking themselves how the ball did not cross the line.
Defensively, too, he made a vital contribution by cleverly poking away the ball from the opposition whenever possible, making five tackles in the process. Marković completed 90.5% of his passes and was the best player in the team.
Meanwhile, Emre Can also continued his fine form at centre-back, with a commanding performance beside Martin Skrtel and Mamadou Sakho. Can, donning the kit number 23, which Liverpool’s legendary one club defender Jamie Carragher once wore, played brilliant, piercing balls down towards the willing runners in Markovic, Borini and Moreno, while also displaying powerful defensive performance.
Can completed 92.2% of his 51 passes, and also created two clear-cut chances from deep; one of which was a searching long ball towards Fabio Borini, who expertly rounded past the keeper only to hit the side netting. The German was defensively excellent throughout, winning three tackles and three clearances: a no-nonsense performance from the German.
Fabio Borini was handed his first start in the Premier League this season, and it was obvious to see that this was a significant chance for him to showcase his prowess. Borini started the game in decent fashion, but more than anything, his determination to win the ball back, willingness to run behind over-hit balls and work rate to help his team play better was outstanding.
He tried to get involved in all the Liverpool attacks and did make intelligent runs for the likes of Coutinho and Gerrard to pass to him. However, he took only one shot at the goal throughout the 66 minutes he played; an immensely disappointing statistic for a forward. Nevertheless, he managed to get his first Premier League assist for Liverpool, and he made an impressive four key passes for his fellow players, one of which could’ve ended in the net had Gerrard given more power to his shot like he usually would. Given some time, perhaps he would be at least a temporary but useful supplementary to the team.
Mario Balotelli replaced his compatriot Borini in the 66th minute; and while he played for a relatively short period of time, he managed to shoot four times, only finding the target once. He made a few dribbles, but most of them proved ineffective. Once again deployed as a lone striker, it was hard to see him lighting up the game, but his work rate was positive, and perhaps once he is played naturally alongside a fellow striker, he might be able to put in some solid performances.
Coutinho and Lucas were also magnificent throughout the game; the former dribbled past his opponents with ease and astuteness, inducing confusion into the other defenders and then expertly playing a penetrating ball forward; the latter was robust and energetic in front of the defence, while calmly dissecting the Black Cats’ attacks. Henderson also went close to scoring one for himself, but smashed the upright instead.
The scoreline is barely the correct representation of an assertive performance from Liverpool. With Sterling and Sturridge, and possibly Lallana, returning soon, and with West Ham and Swansea dropping points, it may be time for Liverpool to catch up and mount a serious effort to get back into the Champions League places.
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