Liverpool are the best team in England, sort of
By Andi Thomas  @andi_thomas on Feb 12, 2015, 9:32a +
Only just beaten by Chelsea, only just scraping past Bolton. Liverpool are weird, and are great fun.
It's been a good few months since anybody's had any cause to write this, but Liverpool are the best team in the country. That is to say, they sit on top of the Premier League form table, with four wins and two draws in their last six games. Since losing 3-0 at Old Trafford Dec. 14 they've played 15 games across all competitions, winning nine, drawing five and losing just once.
Which, when you think back to the bleak Anfield autumn -- meek surrender in the Champions League, the risible 3-1 loss away at Crystal Palace -- is quite the turnaround. But while the results have been largely positive, it's been a very odd collection of performances. Essentially, both the following sentences are true:
The only team to have beaten Liverpool in two months are the actual best team in the country, Chelsea, and they needed extra time to do it.
And:
In that same run, Liverpool have contrived to draw with bottom of the table Leicester City and Championship Bolton Wanderers, and have needed fair dollops of fortune to get victories against AFC Wimbledon, Burnley, Bolton (in the replay), Sunderland and Aston Villa.
In essence, Liverpool have arrived at a place where no matter the opposition, they can make a game close: stick them up against a team on top of the Premier League and they'll push them all the way over two legs; stick them up against a team mid-table in the Championship and they'll scrape past in a replay after the opposition take the lead, fluff a great chance for 2-0, and have a man sent off. And even then, they'll need Philippe Coutinho produce something unstoppable to do so.
Liverpool's emergence into a state of scaleable brinkmanship has come after Brendan Rodgers essentially tore up his plans for the season and started improvising: switching to a back three; moving Emre Can into defence; deploying Lazar Markovic as a wingback; sticking Raheem Sterling up front; restoring Lucas to the first team; inviting Mario Balotelli and Dejan Lovren to take their leisure. Perhaps there's a trade-off inherent in this system: the attacking overloads at one end offset against a certain amount of vulnerability at the other, resulting in the opposition -- of whatever standard -- always feeling as though they're in with a chance.
That said, another curious quirk of this recent run has been a tightening of the Liverpool defence, to the extent that Simon Mignolet no longer looks like a man trying to hide behind one of his posts. Liverpool may not be crushing teams with anything like the verve of last season, but they have managed to tighten things up at the back while regaining some of their former buzz up front (dismal nil-nil draws against Everton aside). Yet there's still that odd consistency: just about good enough to keep Chelsea to one over 90 minutes; just about good enough to keep Bolton to one over 90 minutes.
For Liverpool fans, all this is excellent: their team have managed to put together a few wins, has regained some ground in the Race For Not The Europa League, and has rediscovered the ability to move around quickly in crowd-pleasing, defender-disturbing shapes. But this is also good news for the neutral. Obviously, when Liverpool play your club, then you'd like them to be in a kind of 0-1 to Newcastle, 1-3 to Palace, 0-1 to Aston Villa mood. In terms of the general spectacle, however, laughing at Dejan Lovren has a certain shelf-life.
For a football match to be good to watch, it generally involves at least one team that is confident yet vulnerable; committed to attacking yet in possession of -- or at least believed to be in possession of -- a soft underbelly. Liverpool have managed to end up in a place where this is true no matter who they're playing (er, except Everton). Their fans can expect some decent attacking football, their opponents' can anticipate a fair amount of shonky defending, and everybody else gets to watch a close game.
Whether this is sustainable is perhaps a matter for debate. The return of Daniel Sturridge might well lead to Liverpool actually getting properly good, which would disturb the delicate balance; alternatively, injuries and the impending return of European football might well force Rodgers to start using the squad he doesn't trust again, and that might knock them back the other way. Until then, though, let us give thanks to Brendan Rodgers, who is bringing the entertainment to a bland Premier League and may just have surpassed the great Bill Shankly. After all, he only made Liverpool people happy. Rodgers is bringing something for everybody.