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Victor Moses' time at Liverpool hasn't been what he would have hoped. It also hasn't been what Brendan Rodgers would have hoped, and nor has it been to Jose Mourinho's liking, something the Chelsea manager made clear over the weekend. Yet the only answer to Moses' problem is a simple one: if he wants to play more, Victor Moses needs to train and play better. He isn't there yet, but for Rodgers, there just may be signs he's starting to head in the right direction.
"For Victor it is very simple," Rodgers said. "He wants to remain in a position that he will remain at a big club, whether it is Chelsea or Liverpool. There is no bigger motivation than that. In order to do that he needs to be performing day in day out in training. If he does really well for us there is a possibility we will want to have him permanently. But ultimately it is Chelsea’s decision because he is their player, and if he has done really well, then they will want to keep him."
Liverpool fans groaning at the suggestion Liverpool might look to hold on to a player who's been almost wholly unimpressive so far this season would do well to focus on the qualifiers. If Moses does well it's possible Liverpool would want him, but if he played well Chelsea would want to keep him. Really, it's less a sign Liverpool are about to fight to keep hold of Moses beyond this season and more a condemnation of his play so far.
It's also a reminder to the player of just how much deeper Chelsea are than Liverpool. Right now, despite his FA Cup goal, Moses is in a position where Liverpool most certainly won't seek to keep him. And if he can't make the cut at Liverpool, where his competition is a 19-year-old Raheem Sterling and a severely out of form Philippe Coutinho, it's hard to see where he fits in at Chelsea, particularly now that they've brought in yet another winger in Mohamed Salah.
"When you sample the life of the big institutions like Liverpool, then there’s not many that want to leave," Rodgers added. "But I have seen improvements in his training. If the top players are training nine or 10 out of 10 every day and you have players who are five or maybe six out of 10 every day, then they are not ready to train with them, never mind play games with them. So you have to get them up to the level."
That improvement in Moses' training almost certainly won't see him in contention, though at least it's a move in the right direction for a player who has failed to make his mark at Liverpool. However, despite that he has largely failed to take the opportunities when given and is reportedly poor in training, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has decided to point the blame for Moses' so far disappointing loan spell at Liverpool rather than the player.
"We cannot make more wrong decisions like we did with Victor Moses," said Mourinho, who having returned to Chelsea this season has had no first hand experience with the player outside of a few weeks in pre-season that were enough for him to decide he wasn't good enough for Chelsea this year. "We cannot let a player go on loan who doesn’t play. We have to be very objective in our loans. Our players have to go and play."
Rodgers' message to Moses is the only answer Mourinho's ridiculous complaints deserve: If Moses trains well and plays well he'll get that game time, and if he doesn't the fault isn't Liverpool's. Luckily for all parties, Moses at least seems to be edging the tiniest bit closer to doing that.
