There’s hope without and beyond Luis Suarez, and even a bit of it without Steven Gerrard. Philippe Coutinho still has some adjusting to do and improvements to preform, but his creativity and vision have already made himself one of the best Liverpool performers in the second half of the season, making players such as Daniel Sturridge and Jordan Henderson seem like unstoppable scorers.
Gerrard missed 90 minutes for the first time this season, taken off the pitch in the 73rd minute for Fabio Borini, and the often injured Italian scored his first Premier League goal in what is more or less a lost campaign for him after coming over from Italy with such high hopes. But the story wasn’t Borini, but the overall scoreline of 6-0, something Liverpool haven’t done in a very long time, or Newcastle have conceded in a very long time.
It’s never just one side when these results come up. It’s always a good performance from the winners but an awful one as well from the losers, who aren’t that far apart from Liverpool when it comes to quality, but do have quite a limited manager taking care of business, possibly a bit too highly valued when he signed that eight year contract not too long ago, not really living up to that faith in him ever since.
And Liverpool didn’t swarm the field, but they just made no mistakes, while making the most of their opponents. It won’t get them to Europe unless something quite extraordinary happens in the next few weeks, which means they’ll have a perfect run while Everton and Spurs completely fall apart. But there is hunger and quality in this side, especially after three consecutive draws, and a desire to show they are more than a one-man team as some suggested after Suarez got hit with a 10 match suspension.
Philippe Coutinho never really materialized from a wonderkid into something more substantial while playing for Inter, but he fits the Liverpool style and the English game like a glove, or so it seems from his first few months in the United Kingdom. He plays on the left side, surprising with his aggression and mobility, and doing just as expected and even more when it comes to his touches, passing and vision.
Jordan Henderson is one of those players who only needed a chance to start in the right position. After being wasted away last season on the right side of the midfield and finding himself as an expensive commodity on the bench this year, someone came to the realization that he’s much better at pretty much everything than Joe Allen, especially when it comes to supporting the attack and scoring goals.
Daniel Sturridge? He always knew how to score goals. All he needed was faith, confidence and chances. Not every day is going to be as easy as facing the Newcastle defense, but with Coutinho feeding him balls and Henderson becoming more and more of a threat in the midfield, drawing quite a lot of attention to himself, Daniel Sturridge can possibly become that dangerous and consistent finisher he’s been threatening to do since his teenage days with Manchster City.