Change is inevitable. It can be slow and gradual or sudden and all encompassing. The path to glory - in whatever form that may take - alters constantly as the collective ideals of all those who want to get there either quickens or slows down the process. Football is loved because of the seemingly infinite number of possibilities at any given time. With that being said the only thing that ever really changes anything in this game is the ball crossing over the line. It's been said that the hardest pass to make is the one that leads directly to a goal. There must be a way to make it easier.
Though the road to get to this point in Liverpool's history has been a long and winding one, in the last five years there has been something which has more of a degree of consistency than everything else surrounding the club. Steven Gerrard - as the club's best technical player over that period of time - has underperformed in his role as the primary set piece taker. The sheer volume of corners that the Reds have earned in the last few seasons would suggest that it could be an area of great profit for them but - much like in many other areas - have a very poor conversion rate. It's something that was even a problem when the team didn't have the problems with scoring it now has.
In the 2008/09 season Rafa Benitez and his men finished second in the Premier League. That year the team scored seventy seven goals. Compare that to last season in which the club finished eighth and scored just forty seven. As far as the comparisons go, despite having netted a whopping thirty times more often there were only two more goals scored from corners. Neither campaign was a particularly successful one on that front, despite having won far more set pieces in that area of the pitch than anyone in the league combined the total goals scored from them in both seasons still comes to less than ten.
So far there have been ten games in all competitions thus far this season. Two goals have already been scored as a direct result of a corner, something that took until December of last year to occur. Even before the season begun, Lucas Leiva scored against Leverkusen from an imaginative free kick that Luis Suarez admittedly should have already tucked away but the point still stands that creatively speaking there's a lot more imagination there than there has been as of late. Steven Gerrard peeling away from the Man United defence and nearly scoring at the near post is a routine that could just as easily have resulted in a goal on any other day and what it does is in turn is give all future opponents even more to think about.
One of the other advantages that the results against West Brom and Young Boys have helped bring along is that there are other players who have been able to adjust to that spotlight. Football may be a team game but when a player lines up for a corner he has the eyes of everyone watching upon him. As those players get more experienced in that situation, it will allow them to come into the first team with some level of comfort which is all important for getting it right. It won't be perfect - nothing is - but in terms of trying to gain an advantage over our opponents every single avenue needs to be explored.
All the debate over zonal or man marking - an argument that seems to get lazier as it goes on - ignores the fact that teams will inevitably concede from set plays from time to time. The reason why these plays are so important to success is because that if you get them right they are undefendable. Even on more basic level a team like Stoke for example will very rarely have any more than a handful of attackers in the penalty area at one time, unless they get a chance to overload from a corner and with more players in one area of the pitch there's less room for error on the side of the defenders. A lapse in concentration or an error in judgement - regardless of how minute - can undo whatever good work has been done at the other end of the pitch. That's why it's so important that whoever is given the task of putting the ball into an area where it would cause the most damage can do so consistently.
A reputation in life is something that's built up over time. In the world of football they can be both made and destroyed in a heartbeat. John Arne Riise was regarded as something of a free kick specialist by pundits and commentators alike and he only ever scored twice this way. It did help that one of those goals was an absolute thunderbolt against Manchester United but it goes to show that those with the most fanfare aren't necessarily the ones with the most productivity. The two players that spring to mind when it comes to having as close to an area of expertise as Liverpool have had are by no means high up on the list of anyone's all time favourites. Gary MaCalister and Fabio Aurelio were not quite so lauded as all the other members of the respective squads they were part of - despite both of them scoring special free kick goals against Everton and Man United respectively - but their set plays weren't about scoring, they were about helping the team.
Another part of the problem with the set up these days is not so much who is taking them but who's in the penalty area ready to attack it. It's one of many debates surrounding Steven Gerrard that has been going on now for quite some time. As an opposition force in the penalty area, these days there isn't a great deal of aerial threat to worry a team save for the centre back pairing of Skrtel and Agger. What needs to happen then is for the box to be flooded with as many quality finishers as possible, in order to make the most out of whatever may occur. Having Gerrard out wide like this takes the most lethal finisher at the club out of the game completely. With Craig Bellamy out of the picture there has to be someone who can help out. Rodgers' may have found one already.
It's unfair to put the burden of expectation on anyone so soon into their career, especially one that will know will be as brief as Nuri Sahin's. That being said, thriving at a club like Liverpool is to live off that pressure. Last week against West Brom, the Turkish midfielder put on an absolute master-class in terms of being at the very heart of things and pulled all the strings in midfield. Sahin provided the goal for Andre Wisdom against Young Boys and should have another assist to his name, his ball into the box was met by Coates which forced Ben Foster into the one good save he made all night.
Over the last few games there has been a vast improvement in this area, whether it be Gerrard's performances as he comes around to the style Brendan Rodgers wants him to play, the introduction of Sahin who has been virtually immaculate with his accuracy with the dead ball or even something from the manager himself as we go in new and imaginative directions that are carved out on the training ground. The football as of late has been expansive, easy on the eye and very fluid to watch but as that goes on, teams will do their utmost to put a stop to that. When those questions are asked, the answers will almost certainly lay in our ability to make the set piece count.
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