Liverpool 1 Stoke City 0 - "Three thoughts" by Paul Natton

Not three thoughts this time, but several:

1. Phew.

2. Get in!!!

3. Pragmatic Brendan is back and not before time as that's when he's at his best, in my view - doing what works on the pitch rather than what looks great on paper.

4. Lucas had his best game since that one against Chelsea: he looked mobile, alert and committed. He has to retain his place and in that position, too.

5. Well in Mignolet for ditching the "pass the hot potato" routine at the back: it doesn't suit you, it doesn't suit your centre halves, it invites pressure and it ignores a significantly stronger alternative option up front when Ricky Lambert is playing. Why we ever thought it'd be a good idea to ask you to make your biggest weakness a focal point of our tactical plan, I don't know. Let's hope the idea is dead from now on - or at the very least we now do what any sensible side does and ask you to mix it up when you're distributing the ball. A predictable team is surely a more easily beatable team, after all. So let's not be predictable, eh?

6. Ricky Lambert is a proper centre forward whose touch, experience and understanding of how to do his job have already improved our forward options exponentially in the last couple of games. Once our plethora of midfielder-cum-forwards have adjusted to playing off his knock downs/link ups, we'll have a highly credible Plan B that will still serve us well even if Daniel Sturridge ever manages to play for us again at some point this season. Yes, Lambert lacks mobility, but he doesn't lack anything else and I think he's going to be vital over the course of the rest of this season.

7. Stevie on the bench doesn't seem right and yet right it was. Brendan had to bite that particularly unpalatable bullet at some point and managed to do so unscathed by the experience. Furthermore, if it means he's fresher for the bigger matches and deployed in a more threatening position closer to goal then that's all to the good.

8. Phillip Coutinho is a very frustrating player to watch who, if you let him, could annoy the hell out of you. However, once you remember that he's only 22 years old and playing in a side bereft of goals then you can actually start to recognise what he is: a young player of absolutely immense potential. His feet are utterly mesmerising at times and the quick double touch before laying off to Sterling in the area in the second half was incredible. If we can nurse him through these tough times with his confidence intact and a lot more know-how injected into his brain then he'll be some player; if he can add goals and assists too, he'll be right up there with the very best. He's 22. Let's not forget that.

9. Speaking of youngsters, Raheem Sterling is boss. That's it.

10. Fairplay to Johnno for the goal. He's absolutely infuriating and I'd happily see him leave this summer, but his second half showing deserved that entry on the referee's match report. That said, I'd still like to see proper full backs as regulars in the Liverpool team. How is it everyone seems to think that a full back is now a winger or that attacking play from that position was invented in the last ten years? All the best full backs have been great going forward; the difference between the ones of the past and those of the modern era (in our case at least) is that those lads were rock solid too. How is it Chelsea are able to consistently sign full backs who make a fulsome contribution on the front foot whilst retaining a fundamentally obdurate nature? Branislav Ivanovic, anyone?

11. Tempo, aggression, pressing and attacking in numbers - why has it taken so long for those fundamentals of our game to return? The second half was nowhere near our best football under Brendan Rodgers but at least it looked like a distant relation. The drivel we've been serving up from after the final whistle against Spurs until we kicked off towards the Kop end at 4pm on Saturday just looks like a cuckoo in the nest, so alien is it to what we've come to expect from this team.

12. Is fitness an issue? Remember last season when we looked leggy and lacking in tempo until December but rode our luck via an outrageously gifted front two? Maybe the same has happened this season minus the goals. I do get the impression that we gear our fitness to the second halves of seasons and that means we look physically inferior up until Christmas time. I hope so, because it would explain an awful lot.

13. We need to build on this and that means retaining an unchanged defensive unit, Lucas included. Change is the enemy of consistency in my view and we need to give the team a chance to grind out some results and build a bit of form. That said, I'd deffo have the captain back for Leicester; I'd just play him off Lambert is all.

14. It's so good to come out of Anfield on a high again - even if it was one tempered by a healthy dose of reality. We've got a long road to travel to be back in contention for the title once more, but at least we've shown we can remember what we stand for again.

15. Come on you Reds!!!

Paul Natton

@OxtonSoulBoy