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Liverpool clearly have an eye on Sunday's crunch clash with Manchester United, because manager Brendan Rodgers has left his big hitters at home for this Europa League group stage opener. Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez and Pepe Reina have all been omitted from a youthful squad that includes summer recruits Samid Yesil, Nuri Sahin and Oussama Assaidi. Liverpool's performances in this competition have been far from stellar. A fortunate 1-0 victory at Belarussian side Gomel was followed by a more comfortable 3-0 win at Anfield. In the playoff round the Reds were once again lucky to win 1-0 at Hearts, before needing a late Suarez leveller to salvage a 1-1 draw in the second leg. In the season as a whole Liverpool are creating chances but failing to convert them, and they have scored a paltry...

Sunderland, like neighbours Newcastle last season, could be surprise high achievers this season and they look capable of proving the point at home to Liverpool on Saturday. There are interesting parallels between Sunderland's form under Martin O'Neill and how Newcastle stood at this time last season. Like O'Neill now, Alan Pardew was starting his first full season as Newcastle boss having taken charge early the previous December and stabilised their results. Both managers had achieved flashes of even better form with good results against top-six sides, pointing to further improvement with a summer of preparation and squad-building behind them. O'Neill did even better than Pardew in his first part-season, with an average of 1.42 points per game (Pardew's was 1.23). Without any improvement...

It's difficult to escape the feeling that Hearts have already missed their opportunity in this tie. The SPL outfit had some good spells against a weakened Liverpool side at Tynecastle last week, but couldn't find a way past keeper Pepe Reina. A late own-goal from Andy Webster gave Liverpool a 1-0 win, and the Reds are firm favourites to progress to the group stage. Hearts followed that defeat up with a disappointing goalless draw at Aberdeen at the weekend, a game that saw the Jambos muster just one shot on target in the whole 90 minutes. Hearts keeper Jamie MacDonald says his teammates have belief that they can pull off a shock at Anfield, but the market disagrees. Liverpool's 2-2 draw with Premier League champions Manchester City on Sunday indicates they are heading in the right...

[b]Michael Lintorn expects Liverpool to prove too strong for their Belarusian hosts but not humiliate them...[/b] [i]Gomel v Liverpool, Thursday 19:00, Premier Sports, Match odds: Gomel 10.5, Liverpool 1.41, The Draw 4.7[/i] The first opportunity to check out Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool in a competitive environment arrives on Thursday evening as they visit Gomel, the third-placed team in the Belarusian Premier League, in a Europa League qualifier. It seems reasonable to assume that the side put out by Kenny Dalglish's successor won't offer an entirely accurate impression of what to expect in 2012/13 though, as only one signing has been completed so far and three of his four senior strikers won't be involved. While Fabio Borini, who has more cause than the rest of the travelling...

Jose Mourinho was the Special One. So ever since Mourinho rang up Watford to persuade them to give Brendan Rodgers his first job as a manager, Liverpool's new boss has been referred to as "The Special One's Special One." We got to understand that billing last season. His Swansea side became everybody's second favourite side, the team you almost didn't mind losing to because of the way they passed the ball. Probably the only people who hated what Rodgers did on a shoestring budget were the assortment of managers who either lost their jobs, or found themselves under massive pressure, because their own expensively built team looked so poor in comparison. That track record in South Wales is almost certainly why Rodgers is setting off on Liverpool's American pre-season tour this week with...

If a cup double might have dragged Liverpool's woeful league campaign into the realms of respectability, Saturday's defeat now makes the Carling Cup look trivial in the extreme. Fine margins. And even if they are able to claw back the four points on Everton, finishing above their Merseyside rivals should be no more than crumbs of comfort to Kenny Dalglish. The eventual inquest into Liverpool's pitiful league performance will inevitably begin with their sorry record of just five wins at Anfield all season. The Reds require victory tonight to prevent this from becoming their worst campaign at home since 1948-49. Dalglish's side have only won one of their previous eight league fixtures at Anfield, four of which ended in defeat. In addition, they have taken just a solitary point from ...

For Liverpool the season gets stranger and stranger. There is more silverware in the trophy room, an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley awaits, but league form lurches from bad worse. Were it any other manager at the helm, the natives would be getting restless, but as it is Kenny Dalglish who is in charge, normal rules don't apply. Once upon a time, any form of silverware would serve as job insurance for another season, but in an era in which the Champions League is the all-important money-spinning holy grail for Europe's leading clubs, the League Cup is small beer. Even the FA Cup has lost much of its lustre, last year's 1-0 victory for Manchester City against Stoke a lowlight in the calendar both in terms of the quality of the match and the outcome. There was a time when the FA Cup was ...

[u]Liverpool v Man City, 19:45, Sky Sports 1[/u] This writer finds much to fault in terms of Kenny Dalglish's performance since returning to Liverpool, including his transfer dealings - for which Damien Comolli is also culpable - points dropped to lowly clubs, inconsistent criticism of officials and handling of the Luis Suarez affair. One area in which he has consistently delivered in his second stint however is in getting the best out of his players in big-match environments, which is perhaps why he took the unusual step of publicly berating them after Saturday's 3-1 defeat away to Bolton. Under Dalglish, the Reds have won two and drawn another of their four meetings with Manchester City, gone three for three against Chelsea and beaten both Manchester United and Arsenal. And...

[u]Manchester City v Liverpool, 7.45pm, BBC1 [/u] A first home defeat of the season against Manchester United in the FA Cup on Sunday means that Manchester City enter this Carling Cup semi-final first leg on their worst run of 2011-12, having won just one of their last four games. Making matters worse is the fact that captain and star centre back Vincent Kompany will now miss four matches, including both legs of this tie, due to his dismissal at the weekend. Add into the mix the absence of another defender, Kolo Toure, and Yaya Toure, their most used outfield player, and you get the impression that January, the month that the Premier League leaders usually look forward to more than any other club, will be the most testing of their campaign. Get through it still top of the table...