There was something depressingly predictable in the way some reacted to Chelsea's 2-0 win at Anfield on Sunday. Liverpool, we were told, didn't have a Plan B.
It is the phrase that has somehow become established as the explanation for many a failure. Indeed, it is said so often that, without elaboration, it is meaningless.
If Liverpool did not have a Plan B then Plan A, which has produced 96 league goals, must be astonishingly good.
More pertinently, the accusation is palpable nonsense. Of every team in the Premier League, Liverpool have proved the least rigid in their thinking.
Brendan Rodgers has permed from five formations. He has selected a midfield diamond and an orthodox 4-4-2. He has opted for 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1. He revived the back three when it had fallen out of footballing fashion among top teams in England.
Even before you factor in tweaks to the shape, or Rodgers’s fondness for swapping players around to give them different roles within the same system, he has had Plans A, B, C, D and E.
He has caught opponents unawares with his ability to change tactics. He has pinpointed weaknesses in rival ranks and used his most devastating players to exploit them. No manager has been more imaginative or inventive in his thinking this season. It is inconceivable Liverpool would be top of the league without Rodgers’ meticulous planning.
He has plans. What he doesn’t have is players; not in the number of Liverpool’s title rivals anyway. He has quality, but not quantity.
In effect, Rodgers is operating with a pool of 14: Sunday’s starting 11 plus the suspended Jordan Henderson, the semi-fit Daniel Sturridge and the spare centre-back, Daniel Agger. As Jose Enrique is a long-term absentee and Victor Moses has flattered to deceive, no one else is good enough.
Liverpool’s bench is populated by men who should count themselves distinctly fortunate if they end the season clutching a title winner’s medal.
As is often the case given the stark differences between the clubs, Chelsea present a contrast.
Jose Mourinho won at Anfield when, for various reasons, Petr Cech, John Terry, David Luiz, Ramires, Oscar, Eden Hazard and Samuel Eto’o were not deployed. It was an outstanding result and a brilliant performance of its type, but it is impossible to imagine Liverpool beating elite opposition without seven of their premier 14 players. Their alternatives are inadequate.
Their shortcomings were summed up when Iago Aspas, summoned for a rare outing, was allowed to take an injury-time corner and picked out Chelsea’s Willian. It illustrated why Liverpool get fewer goals from substitutes than their peers. The understudies are underwhelming.
A remarkable element of Liverpool’s charge up the table was that it rarely mattered. When they reeled off 11 straight victories, scoring 38 goals, there were few reasons to mention the £22 million (Dh136m) they spent – some would say wasted – on Aspas, Luis Alberto and Tiago Ilori.
For weeks it seemed as though their transfer-market failings, like the occasional defensive calamity, would not matter, such was the irresistible momentum Liverpool had acquired. Famously fast starters could blow opponents away at the start but also had the resolve and resourcefulness to score decisive late goals. It was a winning combination.
Then along came Chelsea.
Willian, a player Rodgers wanted to sign last summer, scored their second goal, a reminder of the difference excellent recruitment can make.
Jose Mourinho delivered a tactical masterclass, echoing both Chelsea's win at Manchester City in February and Inter Milan's 2010 Champions League semi-final display at Barcelona.
As those prolific teams can testify, it is hard to find a hole in Mourinho’s blanket defences. That task becomes tougher still when the Portuguese’s team are gifted a goal, as they were when Steven Gerrard allowed Demba Ba to open the scoring.
Liverpool’s other problem was simple: they didn’t play particularly well.
In different ways, whether with eviscerating excellence or an iron will, they had reached a high level in each of their 11 wins. They didn’t against Chelsea.
Their golden run of form came to an end. They weren’t at their sharpest. Passes were misplaced. Shots were either off target or usually directed at the centre of Mark Schwarzer’s goal.
Luis Suarez was subdued and, after his coronation as the PFA Player of the Year, it is worth noting the Uruguayan has only scored eight of Liverpool's last 50 goals. They have been shared around. This is no one-dimensional, one-man effort.
With Suarez below par, Sturridge beginning on the bench, Henderson banned and Gerrard making increasingly desperate attempts to secure redemption for his mistake, everyone was either off colour or off the pitch.
Rodgers changed tack, too. He ended up with a back three, using Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho as ersatz wing-backs. This was no passive, David Moyes-esque, acceptance of defeat. It was a game when the top scorers, Liverpool, met their match in a formidably obdurate Chelsea, who showed why they have the best defensive record.
It was a dramatic shift in Liverpool’s fortunes but the constant is that Rodgers has remained creative in shuffling his small pack.
He has usually found a trump card. For once, he didn’t. But to say it was because of the lack of a Plan B is to ignore the evidence of an extraordinary season.
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