What a difference a win could make for Liverpool.
Beat Arsenal today and their season is virtually transformed. They'll be seven adrift of West Ham and the top four. But the real saving grace for Brendan Rodgers is that their most direct rivals for the Champions League slots, Spurs and the Gunners, haven't been firing themselves.
Beat Arsenal today and Liverpool are two behind them. Three behind Spurs. Over half the season remaining. Game on. What were you worried about?
Lose today and it will be crisis lockdown mode at Anfield. And that's the game. That's the nature of this fickle beast and that's why the odds for the next manager to be sacked in the Premier League have actually changed every weekend this season. They could even change again today.
Rodgers has come out in defence of both himself and fellow manager Arsene Wenger who has come under fire too this season. The Liverpool boss believes that some of the Arsenal fans' treatment of their manager has been 'disgraceful' and he went on to make the point about his own position ahead of this afternoon's meeting between the 'Pool and their north London visitors.
“He [Wenger] has been an iconic figure for football, he has been amazing,” Rodgers stated. "You get criticised when you don’t win games but some of the personal stuff he takes is disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful.
“He fell over in a train station and they were videoing it, taking pictures of him, and then people print it. What happened to him the other week at West Brom was absolutely disgraceful, as a leading figure in football, a real statesman of the game, it was really poor. But that is the modern world, unfortunately. Six or seven months ago, I was the manager of the year. I was going to be this and that and tactically I was this and that. But because we lost two world-class players [Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge] – one out of the club, one injured – I am useless.”
Never let it be said that managers don't read paper talk.
