Liverpool (4) Swansea City (1): Reds Close Out the Year with Annual Plucking of the Swans

If Liverpool’s poor performance at Turf Moor in the 1-0 win over Burnley on Boxing Day provided some extra nerves going into their meeting with Swansea City, the Anfield outfit wasted no time in abating them with a dominant performance from the word GO.

Alberto Moreno bagged his second goal of the season just over a half an hour into proceedings when Jordan Henderson’s cross allowed the fullback to finish from close range. Adam Lallana doubled the lead just after the break when he charged down Lukasz Fabiasnki’s attempted clearance, but the visitors struck back less than two minutes later when Gylfi Sigurdsson smashed past a stranded Simon Mignolet. Despite pulling back into touching distance of a result, the Swans never quite looked like convincing challengers and Lallana’s superb second was well complimented by Jonjo Shelvey’s own goal to see the Reds end the calendar year in style.

And what a relief that was; Liverpool looked like they had lost all their attacking impetus away to Premier League stragglers Burnley the day after Christmas and it was feared that their new found intensity was about to go the way of the buffalo. Although, in retrospect, the Clarets surprise draw with Manchester City no longer makes our hard fought three points look all that shabby, there was no question that we were going to have to produce better if we wanted to get a result against Gary Monk’s side.

At the final whistle it was very much mission accomplished.

Whether it was with one eye to the New Year’s Day meeting with Leicester City or not is up for debate, but Reds boss Brendan Rodgers made a handful of changes to the side that struggled to inspire at Turf Moor on Boxing Day and each of them worked out a treat. Jordan Henderson was handed both the armband and a role in the middle of the park with Steven Gerrard rested, Emre Can retained his spot in the back three and our Spanish fullbacks earned themselves a recall with Alberto Moreno and Javier Manquillo popping up in the wing-back slots with the former providing the Reds with the opener.

Martin Skrtel, Raheem Sterling and Lallana were all provided with opportunities to break the deadlock as the hosts dominated the opening exchanges, but it was the 22-year that was first to bulge the net as the Spaniard, clearly enjoying his license to join the attack, worked himself into the right place at the right time to smack a perfectly weighted cross from his Captain for the day past Fabiasnki.

Lallana was next on the score-sheet through unlikely means when, after the break, the Swans ‘keeper took his time in clearing a routine back-pass from the midfield. The England man showed his work rate in closing the Polish shot-stopper down and was given his just rewards when he got his body in front of his attempted clearance, sending the ball looping back into the net. Their comfortable position wouldn’t last long though when, a mere 80-seconds later, Mamadou Sakho failed to adequately deal with a cross from Wayne Routledge under pressure from Bony. The Frenchman got his head to the ball, but it unfortunately dropped right into the path of Sigurdsson who made no mistake in finishing past Mignolet.

Although the Swans looked a bit more composed after pulling one back, their uncharacteristic sloppiness did them no favours and less than 10-minutes later they’d be behind the kosh again. If Lallana’s first was a bit of a fluke, then his second was the polar opposite as the England man ran onto Philippe Coutinho’s expertly crafted flick before using Sterling’s run into the area as a decoy to dance around two defenders and finish low across the face of goal.

If only to make it par for the course, former Liverpool midfielder Shelvey — who always seems to be involved in just about everything both good and bad when facing his old club — extended the hosts lead even further as we moved into the closing stages when the 22-year old inadvertently glanced a header into his own net from Henderson’s poor corner. The Swans had a few chances as the match wound down, most notably Bafétimbi Gomis’s well worked effort that pinged back off the crossbar, but it was a combination of the Reds being too good and the Jacks being too poor that saw the Anfield outfit end the year in style.

While it was light years better than the win over Burnley, the Reds still have some improving to do, but that’s a conversation for another day. Rodgers pointed out in his pre-match press conference that his side had a long road ahead of them if they wanted to recapture the kind of intensity that made them such a force to be reckoned with last season, and that they were only taking small steps. Well, we saw a bit more than a bit of that today; maybe we’re taking bigger steps — I’m not too sure. What I do know though is that if we get more of that on a more consistent basis, we’re going to find ourselves at the end of that road a hell of a lot faster.

–Steven