Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Captain Gerrard coming to save the day. I sometimes wonder if it’s time for StevieG to start wearing his underpants outside of his trousers. It’s amazing how, when things seem at their most desperate, it’s often Captain Gerrard who arrives to pull our a**es out of the fire and I’m beginning to think of him as our very own Superhero.

Saturday was yet another example. Manchester City came to Anfield for a draw, setting themselves up  tactically and physically to achieve that result, and for a long time it looked as if they would be successful in that regard. Although we enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, we seemed to lack the pace and width in attack to break them down. However, once again Captain Stevie rescues the situation by rocketing in a goal from outside the box to give us a hugely important three points.

There have been many examples of Captain Gerrard’s super powers over the years. In the closing month’s of Gerard Houllier’s last season, when we faced a huge uphill task to get into the last Champions' League qualifying spot, it was Captain Gerrard who almost single-handedly drove us to victory in those final games and got us that fourth place. The following season, saw us once again in a desperate situation, when with the clock ticking down at Anfield we needed to score one more goal against Olympiakos to see us through to the next stage of the CL, and once again it was Captain Gerrard who saved the situation with a wonderful long-range strike.

And Istanbul provided us with his finest moment. 3-0 down at half time against AC Milan in the CL final, our cause seemed hopeless and we desperately needed some inspiration from somewhere in the second half. Again it was Captain Stevie who came to the rescue by scoring our first goal and driving us forward to victory in the greatest comeback the game has ever seen.

Last season’s FA Cup final with West Ham was more of the same. Gerrard had already scored one and put in a wonderful pass to Djibril Cisse for our second but we still found ourselves moments from defeat. However, Captain Gerrard wasn’t finished yet and from absolutely nowhere he scored a brilliant 35-yard thunderbolt to put us back on level terms and we went on to lift the Cup after a penalty shoot-out.

These are just several high profile examples of Captain Stevie’s super-powers but there are literally dozens of others. However, throughout the World Cup for England and for the most part of this season he hasn’t been at his best. A number of reasons have been put forward for this, but whatever the cause, he has often played as if someone must have slipped some Kryptonite into his tea.

Thankfully, there have been some good signs recently that his super powers may be returning. This is of course great news for Reds' fans as he is such a vitally important player for us. When we find ourselves in deep s**t and Captain Stevie rescues us with a long-range thunderbolt or a brilliant pass, we are all absolutely delighted - so delighted in fact, that we often forget to examine why we were in deep s**t in the first place.

Despite the fact that Rafa Benitez has assembled a fairly strong squad of players, I still feel that with the exception of Gerrard, we are still a little lightweight when it comes to real quality. We have a mixture of some good and very good players, and some others with great potential. But in terms of true top-class quality, then beyond Gerrard, the cupboard looks pretty bare.

I know some people may disagree with that, but I think sometimes as supporters we have a tendency to overvalue the ability of our players. We tend to base our judgement of them on what they occasionally show they are capable of doing, rather then what they actually do on a regular basis. I am certain there will be much better things to come from this squad of players when things click into place in the remainder of the season. But if we were to judge things based on what we’ve seen from them so far this season, then it makes for pretty poor reading.

Despite all the extra strength brought into the squad over the summer, in my view the only players who have shown any type of consistency in their performances in the season so far are Carra [Jamie Carragher] Daniel Agger, Mohamed Sissoko, Dirk Kuyt and Peter Crouch. For a team that had hopes of mounting a title challenge, this really is a pitiful small number. Unfortunately, injury has robbed us of Momo but thankfully in recent games Gerrard, Joe Manuel Reina and even Boudewijn Zenden have also started to kick in with some good performances.

However, as I mentioned in a previous blog my real worry is in the wide areas. For a team who often plays with two wingers, the quality of our crosses from wide positions has really been deplorable. It would be easy to hang this all on our wingers but I think we must also have a look at our full-backs. Just as wingers are expected to get back and support their full-backs, I think in the modern game it is equally important for the full-backs to get forward whenever possible to support the winger.

John Arne Riise and Steve Finnan are two favourites of mine but I don’t think they’ve been getting forward in support as much as they should. Recently we enjoyed an incredible 80 per cent of the possession against Middlesboring and couldn’t find a way to break them down.

In our next three league games we face Pompey [Portsmouth], Wigan and Fulham. Just like against City and Boro, these are three sides against whom we will have most certainly have a huge amount of possession. In such circumstances our full-backs have got to contribute more to the attack. We really should be hitting these sides like a Red tide with wave after wave of attack. Three wins in these games are well within our capability and could see us back in the top four.

My point is, superhero or not, we can’t keep relying on Captain Gerrard. It’s high time for some of our other players to get out of their comfort zones and take some responsibility. With all the teams around us dropping points, a little winning run now, against very beatable opponents, and we could very well find ourselves in third spot by Christmas. That would be an incredible turnaround after our poor start to the season and a great opportunity to rub our critics' noses in it. If some of our players are truly worthy of wearing a Liverpool shirt, surely this should be all the motivation they need.

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