Photo courtesy of FA.com
Liverpool stalwart Jamie Carragher has been quoted in the media recently saying that Liverpool has improved quite considerably, and he feels the Reds are certainly heading in the right direction. Carragher, who played in his 30th and final Merseyside derby on Sunday, will retire at the end of the season and he feels Liverpool are definitely in a stronger position than they were when the season kicked off.
Is the Liverpool center back perhaps being a little too optimistic in his appraisal, though?
To be fair to Carragher, he’s probably right from one perspective as Liverpool has certainly been more potent in front of goal due mostly to the arrival of Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge in the January transfer window. On the other hand however, Liverpool are still languishing in seventh place, five points behind Everton with only two games remaining.
Liverpool finished eighth last year and even the most fanatical of supporters must accept that a seventh-place finish will be the pinnacle for them this year, so can it really be deemed an improvement?
I’m not so sure there has been enough betterment on the part of the team to justify Carragher’s remarks regarding the team being much stronger, but I will accept there has been some improvement, albeit minimal.
The real problem has once again been Liverpool’s inability to turn draws into wins, and it’s a curse they have to break if they want to make any marked advancements up the Premier League table. This season, Brendan Rodger‘s team have drawn 13 games as opposed to the 10 they drew last year, and this infuriating statistic is mainly what’s preventing Liverpool from challenging for the Champions League.
Continuous stalemates have once again plagued Liverpool’s season and hindered them from competing with the larger clubs, so it’s really very optimistic of Carragher to insist improvement has been made, and I feel he is viewing the current situation through somewhat rose-tinted glasses.
For real improvement to be made, Rodger’s needs to put all his efforts into signing a world-class creative player or two, as I’m not sure one place higher and three extra drawn games constitutes any marked advancement at all.
James Hilton is a soccer writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter , “like” his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google+
