My Thoughts On: Striker Shortage at Anfield

Brendan Rodgers has come under a lot of stick recently for his start in his career at Liverpool despite playing just 3 matches. One of the most talked about factors to this poor start is the fire power up front, or lack of it, after sending Andy Carroll out on loan to West Ham, despite not having a back up striker to come in for him.




Whilst at Swansea, Rodgers had the problem of a lack of goals from up front in the first half of the season. To counter this he brought in Hoffenheim's Gylfi Sigurdsson, who scored 7 goals in the 18 matches he played for the Swans. I imagine Rodgers was looking towards Gerrard to be this goalscoring threat from midfield, as they both share a lot of similarities such as their fierce long shot.

Without an actual proven goalscorer in the Premier League, Liverpool often find that there is no end product to their patient passing game, with Suarez dropping deep from his striker position and Borini missing chances.

Fabio Borini could be a great signing.

The media recently highlighted that their bench against Arsenal had no strikers, with Stewart Downing being the most attacking player, and as we all know, he's no goalscorer. In Borini though, they have a striker who is playing on the wing, so had Suarez got injured, then the Italian would simply move into the centre, and Downing could come on to fill in the right wing position.

I believe it's only a matter of time before Borini starts scoring goals, the striker is a great goalscorer and very consistent when he is on form, sometimes it just takes a few matches for a player to get accustomed to Premier League's intensely fast tempo.

As much as I am sticking up for Liverpool however, they do need a striker as a back-up to Suarez and Borini, though with only loans or free transfers as their options, they don't have much choice.

Options in the Free Transfer Market

With all the names such as Heskey and Owen being mentioned, there are some much better options for Rodgers, that haven't been mentioned once (to my knowledge).

1. Eider Gudjohnsen

Probably the most realistic option, Gudjohnsen has bags of BPL experience with Chelsea and Stoke. He would fit right into the tiki-taka system as he has experience at Barcelona.

2. Nicholas Anelka

Surprisingly this name hasn't been mentioned much as well, the Frenchman left Chelsea to Shanghai, but with the Chinese club in serious financial trouble, the striker might soon be a free agent. Like Gudjohnsen, Anelka has a lot of experience in the Premier League. His wages could be a problem however, since he won't fancy a paycut from what he was given at Shanghai.

3. John Carew

More talked about than the other two, another option is John Carew. Despite standing at 6'5, the Norweigan is good on the ball, unlike most target men, and could offer a different option in attack to the rather short Luis Suarez.

Follow me on Twitter if you enjoyed this short article!