Can Liverpool Turn It Around?
In the years since the heady days of Liverpool winning the league for the last time, Ferguson's United have won 12 Premier League titles, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 10 Charity/Community Shields, (the first of which they shared with Liverpool after a 1-1 draw in 1990) 2 Champions Leagues, 1 UEFA Cup Winners Cup, 1 UEFA Super Cup, 1 Intercontinental Cup and finally, 1 FIFA Club World Cup. Liverpool fans, I understand at this moment in time if you have scrolled down the page a tad. But the good news is that for all the trophies United have laid claim too over the past two decades, Liverpool only have to win two to overtake them - and that's the Premier League. That is, I suppose, what this article boils down to. "Can Liverpool Win The Premier League?" Well... Er... Not this season, no. They are without a win all season, sit in the relegation zone with just two points, have made their worst start to a campaign in 101 years and, worryingly, seem very short on strikers having moved on the likes of Andy Carroll (loan), Dirk Kuyt (Fenerbahce), and Craig Bellamy (Cardiff). The only out and out striker left at the club is Luis Suarez and, too an extent, new signing Borini. But what they do have going for them is a bright young manager in Brendan Rodgers... By firing Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool have in more ways than one stopped living in the days of past glory and have reinvented themselves as a club with new ideas, tactics and flair. Rodgers became the first manager to take a Welsh team up to the Premier League with Swansea City in 2011, no less in his very first year in charge to boot, and he did it with style, winning what could have been a nervy final affair 4-2 against Reading. During his days at Swansea, he made the team play with panache, and won a few notable games against the so called "bigger teams" such as the 3-2 home win against Arsenal in January, before claiming the scalps of eventual Premier League Champions Manchester City in a 1-0 home win in March. Tellingly, Rodgers also prevailed with the Swans in a fixture against Liverpool on the final day of last season, winning 1-0 at the Liberty Stadium to cap off a miserable season for Kenny Dalglish - a result that may have persuaded the board to part ways with the former King of Anfield. And whilst it is true that their squad is ageing, (the likes of Kop Hero's Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher aren't going to go on forever) they do have a batch of incredibly bright young talents coming through the ranks. Youngsters such as Raheem Sterling, who at the age of seventeen has already featured for Liverpool in Europe this season, in his sides 5-3 win at Young Boys in Switzerland. Then of course there is 20 year old Jonjo Shelvey, who climbed off the bench to score two goals for Liverpool in that same encounter to rescue his side from what could have been another one of those embarrassing defeats. Rodgers has also brought with him a player who excelled in his days at former club Swansea in Joe Allen. The 22 year old flourished in his new clubs 2-2 draw against Manchester City, so much so he was voted man of the match on the club's official website.