Glen Johnson: Always On The Run

Seeing is believing. Then again, what a person views with their eyes and information they gather from that are two completely different things. There is a line between perception and deception that's a lot closer than many people give credit for.  The eyes can be fooled, on occasion.  It's only through repetition that we establish a sense of the norm and how the extraordinary differs from that.  Truth isn't something that's based on what you see but rather the consistency with which you see it.

Opinions can be formed instantly or take a while to settle in our minds.  Whether based on experience, knowledge or influenced by others once they are set in stone become very hard to shake. So much of the game of football is about easily definable parameters  When it comes down to it, it's all about a ball crossing over a line or not. With that in mind, it's sometimes easy to forget that the players themselves are variables and as such are not specifically one thing or another.

In this new age of information and an audience ready to consume the game on a whole new level, individuals have very little to hide.  The minutiae of every single aspect of a players game is now analysed and picked apart and yet on the whole Glen Johnson has never been able to escape the shackles of the initial impression he gave to the footballing public. As far as his talent goes, that is the only thing he hasn't been able to leave trailing behind him.

At twenty eight years old, Johnson is one of the senior members of what is a pretty young squad. Having made his Premier League debut almost ten years ago now, he has now made more than double the amount of appearances for Liverpool than for Chelsea, whom he found initial success for (before being cast away like everyone else at Stamford Bridge).  Now playing under his fourth manager at the Liverpool, Johnson has yet to benefit from the kind of stability that the likes of Arbeloa and Finnan before him were able to. That being said, he has still managed to make an impact on the side and made the leap from someone that was capable of great things on his day to a key member of this team.

Being a defender in the modern game is complicated.   Even at his peak, Jamie Carragher was constantly being criticized for not being creative and attacking enough.  Johnson meanwhile has the inverse problem in that he's had this tag of being an incompetent defender unfairly attached to him because he gets forward and is a genuine goal threat.  The job now is about more than prevention, there has to be some contribution at the other end of the field.  At full back it's become especially prevalent as they are usually the ones supplying the width.  It's in this area in which he excels.

Since coming into the job Brendan Rodgers has embraced this aspect and not shied away from his desire to pin the opposition back.  A perfect example would be when Manchester City came to Anfield and after some early probing from both sides, Liverpool were able to assert some authority once Johnson consistently had the beating of James Milner.  It allows the whole team to move forward a good ten yards and allowed the midfield three to dictate.  If his crossing could match up with his ability to beat a man and get into those positions, there really would be no stopping him.

Having it both ways is greedy bordering on stupidity.  Glen can't be a world class defender and provide for the attack in the same way that strikers aren't paid to prevent goals, no matter how much their work rate is admired.  There is a balance that can be achieved and it comes right out of Brendan Rodgers' own playbook.  Defending from the front something that the manager is very keen on and having sheer weight of numbers in advanced positions mean it's far more likely to force them into making a mistake.  In that sense, Johnson can do his defensive duties while still being a threat.  He doesn't have to be blunted completely in order to shut down a team, nor is it right to be careless with his attacking intent.  The one problem he does have is in fact nothing to do with ability but rather the concentration levels that do on occasion let him down.  Switching him over to the left could have been a reason for this up turn in form since last year because of how much harder he has to apply himself playing on the weaker side.  Much like everything else at the moment, it's also about those around him and the bigger picture.

An attacking minded full back leaves space in behind, nothing more.  That room is only there to be exploited if the the other side is able to get a hold of the ball.  As the manager has been at pains to point out since arriving, the importance is the balance of the team and not the individual.  The midfield in particular has to be a lot smarter and protective of possession.  Giving the ball away when Johnson is in dangerous areas may look like a careless move on the part of the defender but no matter how good or bad someone is, it's very hard to do anything seventy yards away.

The media aren't going to change their stance on Johnson any time soon.  At this point, no-one will suddenly see anything new, he'll give you what he always has.  Glen is in the midst of what some would call the form of his life but all it takes is one mistake for that same old inept narrative to come back again.  Having been taken off at half time, with no real indication as to whether there was anything particularly wrong with him, the hope will be that he is back into the line up again on Sunday.  Despite how incredibly well Widsom has been playing as of late, the raw talent of Jack Robinson or the potential renewed confidence Stewart Downing will no doubt be feeling; the team would certainly feel his absence.

Reputations - even ones obtained erroneously - mean very little in the world of competitive sport as there's always someone or something willing to challenge it.  Brendan Rodgers has not seen Glen Johnson a handful of times.  He hasn't read a newspaper or heard on commentary that Johnson "is a little bit suspect defensively".  The manager watches him every day, and so long as he likes what he sees then that is all that matters.  Critics can continue to label him and opposition players can try to catch up with him.  Ultimately, he'll continue to give everyone that comes up against him the run-around.