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From languishing mid-table throughout the autumn to the thick of the top four race as spring begins, it’s been a long, slow climb for Liverpool in 2014-15. With a potentially season-defining match against Manchester United set for Sunday, manager Brendan Rodgers talked about a turnaround for the club that only three months ago was far from certain.
"It’s step by step," reflected the manager when asked by the club’s official website about the slow slog back into the top four race. "It was always going to be a process for us. We were so far behind and to be looking to make up the points was just going to take time, but we’ve put ourselves in a really good position now with nine games to go, and the consistency and confidence of the team is really high."
Now, Liverpool find themselves the Premier League’s form team, and even when they don’t play especially well—as was the case on Monday when they struggled against Swansea City—they’ve tended to win. It’s led to an increasingly confident side, one that believes they can always get the result, something that marked last season’s title challenging squad and was a hallmark of Manchester United before Alex Ferguson retired.
"Even when we didn’t play so well in the first half, we have got the focus to come out in the second half and work well," added the manager. "We got a great victory. So now we look forward to that game [against United]. The supporters will be right with us and hopefully we can get a good result. We need to win our home games, so we go into that game looking to get another victory."
