TOMKINS: WE'RE NOT JUST A CUP TEAM Paul Tomkins 20 March 2008

Myths about Benitez and his Liverpool side continue to be dispelled. Slowly but surely, some critics are getting the point, although plenty still need to open their eyes. To my mind the 'boring'/'defensive' tag has always been inaccurate, but now, as manager of the country's top scorers, there are hard facts to back it up. I've argued since the day he arrived that he wants a perfect balance, not dour defensiveness nor reckless attacking. He wants the version of perfection he had at Valencia. And there was the nonsense that Benitez's system or style of football, or indeed management techniques, hampered his strikers; clearly, it was just about finding the right forward and supplementing him with the right providers. It also took Rafa time to find a prolific scorer at Valencia, but Mista fit the bill in the manager's third season. What Benitez won't do is pander to a goalscorer whose inclusion disrupts the balance. With progress to the last eight of the Champions League secured for the third time in four years, there is bound to be more naval gazing about the apparent disparity between the Reds' league and cup form. I've been arguing for more than a year now that while more is craved, there is no shame in finishing 3rd or 4th in the Barclays Premier League, given that each year the league appears to get stronger and stronger when judged against European standards. As an example, Man United, winners of the title last season and semi-finalists in Europe, went and added Tevez, Hargreaves, Anderson and Nani, and lost no-one of any note. Chelsea added Anelka, Alex, Belletti and Malouda, while Ballack finally 'showed up'. Meanwhile, Arsenal added Sagna and Eduardo, but more importantly, key players suddenly came good, including £10m Hleb after two mediocre seasons, and Adebayor. While Liverpool have also added a lot of excellent players this season, the Reds were always going to be more reliant on them, and in greater need of them quickly adapting. Hence some of the shortfall in the early stages of the season. In 2004 we'd all have jumped at the chance to consistently being one of the four best teams in Europe; the difference now is that you could perhaps argue that the best four teams all appear to be from England. That skews all analysis of Benítez's league improvement. Mix league and European form - because a season is not solely one nor the other for the big four - and you could argue that Liverpool are virtually on a par with any team in the land. The gap isn't that great. So clearly the term 'cup team,' also labelled at Liverpool, is an insult. Yes, it's always the most open route for success for any team working on a lower budget, but there's a lot more behind the Reds' continued European success than the ability to rise to the one-off occasion or to 'get lucky'. Indeed, it's actually quite the opposite: in any one game, the Reds can come unstuck, as we saw away at Reading and West Ham earlier in the season, as well as against Marseilles and Barnsley at home. But two games against virtually any opponent sees Rafa's men come out with overall 'aggregate' superiority. The problem is that the domestic league system (as with the FA Cup) punishes the one-off slip-up more harshly than the European two-legged tie, where home and away scores are combined for one overall result. Take West Ham as an example of how the league punishes the Reds' off days more harshly than the European system. In the Premier League, despite doing enough to earn at least a draw at Upton Park, Liverpool came away with nothing from a 1-0 defeat; soon after, the Reds demolished the Hammers 4-0, leaving just three points gained from a possible six. Had that been in the knockout stage in Europe, Liverpool would have won 4-1 on aggregate and got 'all six points', metaphorically speaking, by progressing. These games were of course played as one-offs, and not two-legged ties, and therefore approached differently by all involved. So it's not an exact science. But even so, few teams can manage an 'aggregate' victory over the Reds from two games. It can actually be seen most clearly in the Champions League. The Reds came unstuck against Marseilles and Besiktas in narrow defeats and drew at Porto, but hammered them all in the return to make aggregate scores of 4-1, 9-2 and 5-2 respectively. Losing two out of every six Premiership games and drawing a third would constitute failure. In two games against almost every European opponent, no matter how impressive their reputation (i.e. now including Inter Milan), the Reds have prevailed. This season, Liverpool's worst score over two games against any opponent is a three-goal winning margin. Indeed, it was the 2005 and 2007 finals where the results were unfair: in one-off games that in the first instance allowed an outplayed Liverpool to win, and two years later, allowed an outplayed AC Milan to fluke their revenge. Perhaps there's even a lesson in the Premiership 'exception that proves the rule', and which shows how difficult it is for the top sides to juggle their resources. Yes, the big four have bigger and better squads, but when you look at the timing of Liverpool's two league games against Reading (4-3 'defeat' on aggregate, although a 7-6 'win' if you include the Carling Cup), you see the necessity for such squads. Just days after the first game, Liverpool had a win-or-bust game in Marseilles; Benitez's hands were somewhat tied by the importance of that absolutely vital European game. And this weekend's encounter came just days after a trip to Milan to face the best team in Italy. Had Liverpool not been in their best form of the season, winning Saturday's game after going a goal behind (to a ludicrous free-kick decision) would have been a tall order against a team who were inferior but, to even things up, much fresher. Just look at how Everton came unstuck in that sense this weekend. What we're now seeing is this Liverpool team ending the season in the form people expected it to ease into from Day One and maintain, but which, with so many new players, wasn't realistic. Perhaps the good start misled people, and I'm as guilty of getting my hopes up as anyone. But now we're seeing what has been noted so often in the past: new imports only reaching their best in the new year, and that teams take time to gel. Torres whetted our appetites in the autumn, but actually scored 'only' seven in his first 14 league games as he adapted; despite the continued media myopia, only twice was he rested in the league, and only one of those led to a bad result, and he even played 30 minutes of that 0-0 draw. (He was actually rested for as many Champions League games back then –– Toulouse home and away). His problem finding consistency was more about adapting, and overcoming two injuries sustained with Spain. Rather than give Benitez credit for having the foresight to sign Torres, to develop a way to play that suits both him and the team, and to handle him in such a way that his transition was fairly smooth, he still gets criticised by some pundits for not playing him enough earlier in the campaign. In his last 13 league games Torres has scored an astonishing 13 goals, and at least some of that has to be down to not being overplayed early on. He now has 27 in all competitions, all from open play; unlike Owen and Fowler before him, he hasn't taken any penalties either, so his tally is even more remarkable - in an age when high totals are harder to come by. His understanding with Gerrard has blossomed with time - something you can't cut corners on - and that's a massive bonus. Elsewhere, Ryan Babel's level has improved dramatically as the season has progressed. Yes, he clearly prefers his right foot, but for all the people who tell me he's predictable in that sense I ask how many defenders actually stop him cutting inside and getting a shot away? Where he's unpredictable is in precisely when he will shoot; he reminds me of Patrik Berger in that he moves the ball so quickly after dummying to shoot, to work the space he needs. And every now and then he goes on the outside, to flummox the full-back. Lucas has grown into the midfield anchor role, from looking a little shellshocked to start with; again, he needed time, and of course, still needs to develop further. Mascherano's form is improving week by week, from impressive to monstrously good. And after several months out, Alonso is finally finding his old sharpness, while the return of Agger next year will be a massive boost; he's been sorely missed. The aforementioned midfielders and a number of defenders continue to be heavily rotated, but has that stopped a winning run of seven games or six clean sheets in the last ten? And now the pacy and uncompromising Skrtel has been added, Hyypia, who continues to shine, can be rested. Skrtel, like Torres, appears to have settled quickly, but you still have to allow all new imports time. What's clear is that the new-found understanding - of the league, of their team-mates and of the manager's methods - by this season's new additions will automatically be in place in August, when it wasn't present at that stage last year. I said some time ago that to judge the team solely on its winter league position was to miss the point about how good the side really could be: it has needed time to gel and grow; it has had to perform amid constant media stories that will hopefully be a thing of the past come next season; it has continued to defy expectations in Europe as more expensive outfits are humbled; it has had to overcome some damaging injuries, particularly to two passing players from the spine; and it has now, despite all this, managed to score more goals than any other English team. Cut out just half of those occasional costly league slip-ups that this season occurred both with and without Torres, and perhaps anything will be possible.