It seems so long ago now that Liverpool were beaten 3-0 by their fierce rivals Manchester United - putting Brendan Rodgers under some serious pressure. Back then, Liverpool seemed to be incapable in all areas of the pitch.
It was less than a week after being knocked out of the Champions League at the hands of a supposedly inferior Basel and it was Liverpool's fifth defeat in 10 games. Everyone from people on social media to journalists and pundits were calling out Rodgers for being out of his depth.
52 days and it is all different, Liverpool are now up to 7th in the table with a real shot at getting into the Top 4 and a good FA Cup campaign kept alive against Bolton thanks to the ever-improving Emre Can and beautiful goals from Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho. That trio have been praised a lot during the last few weeks and deservedly so.
Coutinho has added consistency to his game and flourished in the new formation becoming possibly the best player in the club right now which would explain how supporters were delighted by the news of his contract renewal. Sterling was handed the task of leading the line and responded magnificently but now that Sturridge is back and scored minutes after coming off the bench, Sterling won't have to worry as much about carrying that burden alone.
Emre Can has also been very good recently as part of a trio with Skrtel and the 'awkward' Sakho. Amongst others who have impressed,improved and took their share of the praise as well are Lucas, Mignolet, Markovic, Moreno and Henderson. However, it seems that there's one man who has been lost in the shuffle and has not taken nearly enough praise for this run of form and that's Brendan Rodgers.
It seems odd that the man who was criticised for deploying a rigid slow system in 4-2-3-1 is now getting very little praise for coming up with the idea to play with this very unique formation.
Brendan Rodgers decided to play Emre Can at CB, Brendan Rodgers decided to use Markovic as wingback and he also decided to drop his strikers altogether and play a diminutive 20 year old attacking midfielder in their place. All of those choices have paid off. Rodgers has also been attacked for signing Lovren and Balotelli and insisting on playing them, now after he dropped them no one seems to mention it anymore.
It takes a good manager to build a good team and realise the mistakes when he sees them, but it takes a great manager to realise mistakes when he sees them and fix them and it seems that Rodgers has added that to his locker. Maybe Rodgers can go on to be a great manager and maybe, just maybe, he can lead us to glory.
