Brendan Rodgers will finally welcome Alexis Sanchez to Anfield this weekend, with more than a touch of regret in his voice.
The Chile striker is the one who got away in the summer... and the one player the Liverpool boss so desperately wanted to make his team competitive after the departure of Luis Suarez in the transfer window.
The Reds tried everything to tempt the former Barca man to ignore Arsenal and instead make the trip north to Merseyside, but to no avail - even after offering him more money than he eventually accepted to sign for the Gunners.
For Rodgers, the sight of the Chilean leading the line of one of his biggest rivals for a top-four spot will hurt – not least because, he admitted in his pre-match press conference, the qualities Sanchez would have brought are exactly what was missing from his struggling side for much of the campaign so far.
“Not to get him was obviously bitterly disappointing, because he was identified for us as someone who would have been a key signing and really just a roll-on to what we had with Luis Suarez,” Rodgers explained with a real honesty.
“If you look at how I ask the teams to play, it is critical. Not just with the ball but the intensity with the pressing.
“When Daniel Sturridge was injured in August, I think everyone who knows football should hopefully be able to see that our game has become much deeper because of personnel.”
Liverpool did bring strikers Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert to the club in the summer, but their manager knew he was totally reliant on Sturridge to provide the sort of pace up front – and, crucially, the pressing his team's tactics are based upon.
With Sturridge injured, the Reds have simply lacked that penetration and work-rate in a vital area of the field, and it is the presence of Sanchez at Anfield that will painfully highlight what Rodgers – in a frank, blunt assessment of the season so far – conceded has been sorely missing.
“Having that pace in the central area of the field... first of all it allows you to press and it means that your game can be much more aggressive. You press the ball in the high areas of the field,” he explained.
“It gives you more chances of a goal if you are winning it higher up the field, 25-30 metres from goal. You are going to create more chances and the types of players I have - the technical players - they then have the skills to deal with the ball in tight areas, so we haven’t had that.
We brought in Balotelli, who has had an opportunity to play in that role but that isn’t his game. Big Rickie has come in and he was brought here for a reason and a purpose and he has great qualities but that isn’t what he does.
When you don’t have that and press high up the field, then your starting position is much deeper, you become much deeper in the field and then it works the other way in transition. You cannot then break at breakneck speed and flood forward like we did last year because we are not that explosive.”
In the absence of Sturridge and a signing like Sanchez, Rodgers has patiently tried to mould Balotelli into that role, but it simply hasn't worked, and he eventually abandoned the experiment in favour of Raheem Sterling in a new position down the middle.
Many people questioned the Liverpool manager's tactics, but since playing the 20-year-old there, the Reds have looked a team transformed, creating a vast number of chances against Manchester United and Bournemouth, with Sterling scoring twice in midweek and being denied an Old Trafford hat-trick only by the brilliance of keeper David de Gea.
For Rodgers, the pace Sterling brings to the role makes up for his icnexperience, and the Anfield boss believes his side will be a very different proposition against Arsenal on Sunday after finding a way to return to last season's style.
“The other night, we had, for probably the first time (this season), that ability to break forward with speed and on the counter-attack. That was clear - that was the tactical element and that is critical to how we work,” Rodgers explained patiently.
“The other night a British coach playing 3-4-3 – he has probably thrown the team together, he has played seven midfield players. If it was a foreign coach it would probably have been a wonderful tactical idea of playing the game.
“Sterling playing through the middle, what is he doing? Or Markovic wide? That is the key for us trying to get the players in position who can make us effective.
“You watch the game the other night and see that profile of player in that position and see what it brings to the team. When you have got the players to play in the way we want to work you can see the issues and the problems we can cause opponents.”
Rodgers will continue with Brad Jones in goal, and with Liverpool accepting Balotelli's one-match ban for disrepute, will also continue with Sterling in the central striker's role.
Defender Dejan Lovren is injured. Mamadou Sakho will replace him.
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