Dubai: Liverpool legend Ian Rush believes a true test of his old club’s newfound confidence will come in their next three league games.
Liverpool top the English Premier League with 10 points from four matches after Monday’s 2-2 draw away to Swansea City, which followed three successive 1-0 wins against Stoke City, Aston Villa and Manchester United — marking their best start to a league season since 1994/95.
However, Rush, 51, who fired the club to their last English league title 24 years ago in 1989/90 with 18 goals, is reluctant to herald the club’s revival without first seeing how they perform against struggling sides.
“It’s way too early to say Liverpool are back, we are only four games into a season,” Rush told Gulf News in a call to promote Liverpool’s online content agreement with sports channels network BeIN Sport. “The next three games — Southampton at home, Sunderland away and Crystal Palace at home — will give us more of an idea. They are the games, particularly the home games, that you have to start winning if you want to be in the top four.
“We’ve had a great start, but in the last couple of seasons it’s been the games that we’ve been expected to win that we’ve lost. And they are typical games like Southampton because they will come here and be happy with a draw.
“Games against Manchester United and Manchester City don’t worry me because I know we are going to play well against them. But Southampton and Palace will up their game because they want to come away saying ‘we won at Anfield’. We have to have the same mentality against Southampton as we do with Man United.”
Of Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Swansea on Monday, Rush, who is Liverpool’s all-time leading goal scorer with 346 in 660 appearances, said: “I thought we played well. Having been 2-1 up you can feel a bit disappointed that we didn’t get the three points, but I think we take it as a point gained because we got beaten there last season.
“It’s nice to see Liverpool top of the league again. It’s important not just for our supporters but the players to have that winning mentality and confidence. Now they don’t want to lose and they will be fighting that little bit harder.”
Of winning without Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez, who is still serving an eight-match ban for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic, Rush added: “With Suarez out Daniel Sturridge has come in to score four goals in four games.
“What [coach] Brendan Rodgers has tried to do is make it a competition for places where it’s not guaranteed you can walk straight back into the side.
“It will be great to have Suarez back and ready, but if you’re winning games you would be disappointed if he comes straight back in for someone else.”
