Liverpool have plenty room for improvement

Since the first day he arrived at Liverpool, Brendan Rodgers has been drilling his players in the principle that if they get the performance right, the results will surely follow.

Yesterday’s matches in the Premier League proved that as with many other management principles, the actual relationship between performance and result is at best approximate and at worst ironic.

Rodgers’ selection of Jonjo Shelvey to start in midfield with Steven Gerrard and Joe Allen was a withering statement of what the manager thinks of his midfield options. One wonders why Liverpool made such an effort to snatch Nuri Sahin from the clutches of Arsenal, if he can’t be preferred to Shelvey in a match like this.