5 Possible changes including Gerrard omission: How Liverpool should line up against Fulham

Liverpool welcome Fulham to Anfield on Saturday in what looks like a very winnable game for the Reds. Having gone down 2-0 to Arsenal last weekend, it would be great if Brendan Rodgers’ men bounce back and not only claim three points but put in a decent performance before the International break.

With Arsenal taking on Manchester United on Sunday, one of them is going to drop points thus the importance of us making sure we get all three to either pull further away from United or close the gap on Arsenal.

Brendan Rodgers probably has his best squad to pick from for this game with only Aspas and Coates being the long term injury absentees and in all fairness, both of them would most likely not have made the starting lineup if they were fit.

With a near full set of players to pick from, it will be interesting to see who Rodgers picks and more importantly if he sticks to the 3-5-2 formation which he has been using.

Jan Molby spoke out today in the Liverpool Echo about the 3-5-2 and the former Lverpool midfielder believes that Rodgers should continue to stick with the formation despite the defeat to Arsenal.

Molby said, “I hope Brendan Rodgers perseveres with three at the back for tomorrow’s visit of Fulham.

“Just because Liverpool FC were beaten 2-0 at Arsenal I don’t think there’s any need to rip everything up and start again.”

I do not expect Rodgers to change from the 3-5-2 formation as it seems to work very well against the lesser teams. It is when we face teams such as Arsenal that we could run into a few problems with it.

So looking ahead to the possible lineup for Liverpool against Fulham:

Goalkeeper

Simon Mignolet will certainly continue in goal. He did not have a bad game against Arsenal as there is not much he could have done to prevent the two goals they scored. However, the Belgian keeper still has lots of work to do when the ball is at his feet. Hopefully this is something he will learn as he matures. It would have been great if he was able to spend some time learning that art from Pepe Reina as he is one of the best in the business in that department.

Central Defenders

The trio of Sakho, Skrtel and Toure has not done too badly in the games they have played but I feel it is time for Rodgers to recall vice-captain Daniel Agger into the side for the Fulham game.

Jan Molby also has thoughts about Agger’s return as he said, “It will be interesting to see whether Rodgers decides the time is right to bring back Daniel Agger.

“It’s a tricky one for the manager as the three centre-backs who have been playing have done okay without being outstanding.”

There question then is, who drops out for Agger? For this one, I would pull Kolo Toure out and shift Skrtel to the right hand side of the back three and put Agger in the middle and Sakho on the left. Placing Agger in the middle would give him the opportunity to almost play like an old-fashioned sweeper and step out of defence with the ball. Fulham’s main attacking threat would be Berbatov and Agger should be able to deal with him better down the middle compared to having to face a big physical striker like Giroud or Benteke.

So my first change out of the five would be bringing in Agger for Toure. Kolo has done nothing wrong to warrant him being dropped but maybe he needs a bit of a break now so that he does not burn out. He did after-all join Liverpool as a backup defender.