Misfortune and misjudgement: Liverpool’s striker crisis self-imposed by transfer market failings

Lack of goals from the forwards have hurt Liverpool this season, writes Richard Jolly.

Mario Balotteli's struggles have come to symbolise Liverpool's disappointing dealings in the transfer market.

They were found side by side, top of the scoring charts in a historic first. For the first time in the Premier League, its two most prolific players were teammates.

Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, with 31 and 21 goals, led the way. Liverpool had the most potent pairing in the division last season.

Now they have the least-prolific forward line in the Premier League. The out-and-out attackers — Sturridge, Rickie Lambert, Fabio Borini and Mario Balotelli — have struck eight times between them.

Every other club’s strikers have delivered at least 11. Liverpool, who recorded a century of goals last season, seem almost deprived of firepower.

Remarkably, Everton’s first-choice back four of Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka, John Stones and Seamus Coleman have outscored the Liverpool forwards.

Liverpool meet relegation-threatened Queens Park Rangers on Saturday, with a forward, in Charlie Austin, who has delivered more than twice as many goals as their entire strike force. They have gone from brilliant to blunt, destructive to dull, irresistible to all too stoppable.

“We can’t hide away from fact we’ve lost over 50 goals from last season,” manager Brendan Rodgers said. It was both explanation and excuse. The SAS have been separated by Suarez’s sale and Sturridge’s injuries.

While the Englishman has started only seven of 34 league games, Rodgers has a strike quartet who delivered 55 top-flight goals last season: Sturridge’s 21 for Liverpool, Balotelli’s 14 for AC Milan, Lambert’s 13 for Southampton and Borini’s seven for Sunderland.

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Each has played less this season than last, but it amounts to a tale of misfortune and misjudgement — and arguably mismanagement — in the transfer market.

The quartet cost Liverpool more than £40 million (Dh223.8m). Raheem Sterling’s use in attack has limited their opportunities but served as an indictment of all, with even Sturridge omitted at times for the winger.

He is now in the United States for treatment after an injury-hit campaign. The sidelined Balotelli will also miss the QPR match. His recall for the past two games ended a five-month wait for a league start. He has been misfit and outcast, a man Liverpool categorically denied they would buy and marquee signing. His relationship with Liverpool is characterised by mistrust. He is a stylistic mismatch.

The Italian’s stop-start style contrasts with the perpetual pressing Suarez employed, setting the tone for the team with his work ethic. Balotelli does not drag defences deeper in the way Sterling can.

While Rodgers’ inventive management seemed to offer hope his vast potential would be unlocked, he has looked uninterested and been unsuccessful.

For all his eccentricities, he delivered goals reasonably regularly for Manchester City (20 in 54 league games) and AC Milan (26 in 43). His return for Liverpool is one in 16. This ranks as the worst season of his career.

Lambert seemed, briefly, to be Plan B, a substitute who was used well in August to allow Liverpool to adopt a more direct approach in the closing stages. It hinted at a reason for his recruitment — beyond his lifelong support of the club and a comparatively cheap price. Since then, there has been less evidence of planning.

Lambert and Liverpool look a bad fit, the veteran too slow and static, their attacking midfielders having different requirements from their strikers.

Borini possesses more of the attributes, but he has been persona non grata after resisting attempts to make him leave last summer. The Italian was one of Rodgers’ favourites; now he has joined the group who have vanished under his management.

Yet while Rodgers has flourished by improving other players, he has floundered with three forwards, in Balotelli, Borini and Lambert, who delivered more for previous employers.

Two were Rodgers’ choices. Balotelli, imposed from above, definitely was not, which can account for a seeming willingness to make a striker a scapegoat.

Yet as with much at Liverpool, it reflects on many at Anfield, from the players themselves to Rodgers to the owners and

powerbrokers.

The infamous transfer committee tend to demonstrate an inability to secure their major targets. And in a season where Liverpool are failing to achieve their goals, it is largely because of a lack of goals.

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