Liverpool vs FC Sion Match Preview

By Joel Lampkin

The second round of Europa League fixtures take place this week, and Liverpool face Swiss side FC Sion at home at 8:00 UK start time. The red men go into the fixture with confidence after beating Aston Villa by three goals to two on Saturday which relieves major pressure on Brendan Rodgers for his signature. Daniel Sturridge showed his quality to produce two excellent goals and showed glimpses of the type of football that helped Liverpool to their success in the 2013/2014 season.
FC Sion are struggling with form as of late and are slipping further and further from the top 3 in the Swiss league, FC Basel lead the way on 27 points almost double what FC Sion have maintained with 14 points from 10 games. FC Sion will be a relatively unknown outfit when they return to Merseyside on Thursday for the First time since 31st october 1996, where they were beaten 6-3 by Roy Evans' men.

Liverpool will be without Dejan Lovren and Sakho is expected to retain his place in the starting line up.  In the last europa league fixture Brendan Rodger's named a very young and inexperience side, he may repeat this, with Jordan Rossiter and other younger stars calling for game time.
Divock Origi may well play as a lone striker with possibly Adam Lallana in the central attacking role. Joe Gomez is expected to return to the squad with players like Alberto Moreno, Cameron Brannagan, Emre Can,  Pedro Chirivrella all expected to feature. Brendan Rodgers would be walking on thin ice and would expect heavy calls for his dismissal should Liverpool deliver anything but a win. Many fans remain unchanged with their view on the northern Irishman still claiming his time at Anfield has run its course.  Jurgen Klopps odds of becoming new Liverpool manager are at 6/4 with Sky Bet and Carlo Ancellotti remains a heavy favourite at 6/4 also with Bet Victor.

Fc Sion's previous visit to Anfield nearly nearly 20 years ago saw them go 2 goals up in quick succession before Mcmanaman gave hope to the Liverpool crowd to make it 2-1, Anfield was home to a legendary second half still fondly remembered by those who played. Bjornbye curled a free kick home to level the game at 2-2 but the ecstacic revival was short lived as FC Sion pulled ahead to make it 3-1 thanks to Chassot, who rounded Liverpool goalkeeper David James and slotted home.

John Barnes showed his still had what it took at the highest level as he back heeled the ball past Sion goalkeeper Lehman to make it 3-3 where Liverpool took emphatic control of the game, within two minutes both Fowler and McManaman combined to take the score to a thrilling 5-3 and to top everything off, Patrick Berger slotted home after being left one-on-one with the goalkeeper to make it 6-3 and cap off a memorable european night at Anfield. Liverpool however lost to PSG 5-3 in their next two fixtures on aggregate to end their European un that season.

Check out the Highlights from the historic fixture here:


Liverpool would be expected to win comfortably at Anfield but their shaky start to the season should be an indication to not take FC Sion lightly.
With a young and weakened side expected to take to the field, the senior players who will feature must step up and be a shining light as to why they deserve their place in the starting XI. As one of the most important fixtures of the season looms this Sunday at Goodison in the Merseyside derby. The current league standing see Everton above Liverpool by 4 places but still a point just separates the two clubs with 7 games played this season
*Sunday's derby will be first meeting since Steven Gerrard left Liverpool for LA Galaxy.

Brendan Rodgers, The One Page Man

Brendan Rodgers Boring-Pool

8 Points, 13th in the league table, no trophies in his four year reign, a growing sense of hatred from the fans. Yet Brendan Rodger's refuses to lie down and accept defeat, kind of admirable isn't it? Well I guess but with all this pressure placed on the northern Irishman's shoulder's you'd expect some sort of crack wouldn't you? Looking at every press conference he gives, he is nearly almost relaxed, cool, calm and collected? 

This may just be my opinion but a Liverpool fan who watched that game, who feels genuine love for the club, would show more emotion, it may just be masses and masses of media training that has been cemented over his emotional well being, put I want to see some fight in the man. Remember Kenny Dalglish's interviews the man couldn't hide his anger, his sadness, his happiness, he lived the games and showed the fans when he was stressed, when he was desperate and we supported him through this. Rodger's is beginning to hide behind the catchphrase of 'character', it is beginning to destroy him and becoming a kind of irony because what we definitely do not get from the boss is character, hes a one page man, it's becoming boring, its becoming tragic.

  

Reflecting on the draw to Norwich...at home which is important to note, one question I would ask is related to the paragraph above, where is the fight, the passion, the heart? Its heartbreaking to see so many shadows in Liverpool shirts, I miss the Carraghers the Gerrards, the Hyypias the players that wanted to stand up and be counted the last time I seen a player that wanted to be counted was sold to Swansea, Jonjo Shelvey, always showed fight and desire and it a fan favourite under Gary Monk. Who is at fault for this though? I think its the atmosphere, the fans have pressured the owners to sack Rodger's and I think the players have an underlying feeling that its going to happen sooner rather than later, with this constant questioning it must be becoming harder and harder to 

motivate the players to perform to their highest levels. The team that was laid out at Norwich was one of the strongest we have seen this season, yet we only scored 1 goal, 1 goal out of 23 shots, if this is one of our strongest line ups and we cant even beat a newly promoted team, at home, what are we playing for? This cant be a simple 'Bad day at the office' or 'It's a one off' because it happened a lot last season and it continues to happen. The only bright term of last season was the unbeaten run from the 21st of December to the 16th of March that is one of the reason's Rodger's remains in charge.

Liverpool started off well this season, 3 consecutive clean sheets, 2 wins a draw away to a strong Arsenal team that could have swung either way. However losing sorry scratch that, being decimated by West Ham, at home 3-0 is inexcusable it was like being back at Anfield last season all over again as if the new fresh air was replaced with carbon monoxide.  

Then essentially rolling over to a relatively weak Manchester United team who showed continuously the weaknesses in the heart of the Liverpool defence. Pressure mounted, a 1-1 draw at Bordeaux with a very young, inexperienced Liverpool side may have relieved pressure slightly, but a 1-1 draw, with a strong squad at home to Norwich, indicates problems, big problems. Its hard to be positive at the moment for Liverpool fans, with upcoming games to Carlisle and Aston Villa both at home, they were once games you should expect to win, now they have become games that you are not confident of anymore. 

From outside of Melwood and Anfield, Brendan Rodger's recently moved into his new home which he currently rents from Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard for £10,000 a month. Taking this into account it's hard to see the Northern Irishman leaving in the near future, a resignation looks well out of the picture and with one of FSG's main messages being calculating money being spent needlessly they may gamble on Rodger's for at least the rest of the season as its well documented that he has a £8.5 million release clause if he is fired, quite the insurance policy for the ex Swansea boss. Whether FSG have put all their eggs into one basket is up for debate but at the mean time the future is started to look bleak, very bleak 

Looking at the statistics of some of Liverpool's greatest ever managers according the win percentage specifically, Brendan Rodger's looks as if he fits perfectly, what do you think? Leave your comments below and tell me where you think Brendan Rodger's fits in the scale of greatest Liverpool managers!

Liverpool vs Norwich City PREVIEW

Its been a while....

Liverpool take on Norwich City this Sunday with the two clubs vying for a win, to kick-start their mediocre season which has seen the two remain equal on 7 points in the premier league. On paper it may seem that Norwich may be heading to Anfield as the favourites as they have accumulated more points out of their last three games than the red men, who have managed just 1 out of 9 points thanks to a draw at Arsenal. Liverpool's last home game saw them face a humiliating defeat at the hands of West Ham who clinched all three points with a three nil win on August 29th, While Norwich won their previous fixture at home to premier league newcomers Bournemouth, with the match being away to Anfield and Liverpool becoming more and more desperate the fixture may well be a contender for match of the weekend.

 Liverpool held french outfit Bordeaux to a draw on Thursday night in the Europa League in what could be a crucial point for the reds as Brendan Rodger's fielded a somewhat weak team with 10 players under the age of 24 making appearances. Adam Lallana returned to the squad and finished superbly midway through the second half, tricking his way through the Bordeaux defence with some fancy footwork along with a crowd pleasing nutmeg to which he completed his run with a well placed goal. Liverpool however conceded with ten minutes to go as substitute Jussie poked him to leave Liverpool without a win in their last four games home and away.
 Frenchman Mamadou Sakho was a shining light in the Liverpool defence and many fans on Twitter were pleased to see his return to the squad, after some questionable defending from Dejan Lovren in recent weeks, Sakho was composed and offered leadership that has been missing in previous fixtures.

(It is no surprise that he was offered a a new contract which he has today signed.)  Mamadou Sakho is also rumoured to be starting on Sunday against Norwich City as Brendan Rodgers stated in his post Europa League press conference that Both Sakho and Lallana impressed and staked their claim to be brought back into the starting 11.



Recent fixtures between Norwich and Liverpool have nearly all been brought back to one man, Luis Suarez. The now Barcelona man terrorised keeper John Ruddy throughout his Liverpool career scoring 11 goals across 5 matches and one was almost on the halfway line, however the days of El pistolero are certainly over, with Liverpool now looking to rely on Christian Benteke and Danny Ings.

Benteke is yet to hit the ground running during his recent Liverpool transfer with the Belgian only managing one goal in 5 competitive games, a goal some may claim should never have stood vs Bournemouth. However looking back at the history of fixtures between the two clubs, Sunday may well be where the big man finally comes into his own as Liverpool have scored a whopping 109 goals past Norwich across 54 games with the Merseyside club winning the majority 30 out of the 50 games.

The last time Norwich beat Liverpool was over 10 years ago in 1994 with Norwich winning by just one goal thanks to Goss. This historic fixture was actually the last match to be played infront of the legendary standing Spion kop, as seats were introduced the following season thanks to the Taylor report.

Possible/Favoured Liverpool line up(This Liverpool team is in no way a predicted team formation or team line up, with up to date injury lists included at time of posting). Captain Jordan Henderson is expected to remain out of the first team through injury.Daniel Sturridge is not back to full fitness and the manager does not want to rush him back.Lovren is dropped due to his poor performances.Moreno and Lallana narrowly miss out on starts.                                                                                                                                            Predicted Result -Liverpool 4-0 Norwich

Relive a classic Liverpool vs Norwich moment here as Djibril Cisse strikes home for Liverpool's third to cap off a three nil win.Djibril Cisse vs NORWICH City Classic moment

If you have any feedback or suggestions regarding team formations, players, or any improvements to the blog, please do not hesitate to comment, or if you prefer email me at joelliverpool@hotmail.co.uk