Premier League Weekend Review: Why losing Luis has damaged Liverpool's defence

Miss you . . . Brendan Rodgers hasn't replaced the tireless energy of Luis Suarez

A 3-0 defeat at bitter rivals Manchester United has heaped the pressure on Brendan Rodgers. Ralph Ellis says it is the forwards as much as the defenders who are to blame for the current Anfield chaos...

Way back when I worked for the local paper in Bristol I used to be allowed to travel on the Rovers team coach to away games. I lived near the centre-half, a genial giant of a man called Tim Parkin, and we used to share lifts to meet the bus.

There was a spell when the team went through a run of defeats. I'd written several match reports blaming the poor defending, and bravely made the point again after they'd let in three in a home game.

The following week the atmosphere in the car early on Saturday morning was prickly. "The thing you don't understand," said Tim, "is that if the ****ing centre forward can't keep the ball when we clear it, we're going to spend 90 minutes defending, and not even Franz ****ing Beckenbauer could have spent that long without making a mistake."

If Brendan Rodgers was admitting after getting spanked 3-0 at Old Trafford that he had "a fractured dressing room", I can imagine it is the same argument between the back and the front of the team being played out. There was a clue in Jamie Carragher on TV calling Philippe Coutinho "lazy" for failing to track Wayne Rooney's run before United's first goal.

The orthodox view of Liverpool's problems is that they can't defend. They shipped 50 goals last season and with 22 conceded after 16 games are on target to lose 52 this time. Whatever Rodgers seems to try to solve that - the latest move being to axe his goalkeeper Simon Mignolet - it doesn't seem to get any better.

Some poor soul backed the Reds at 1.491/2 to finish in the top four this season. Stuck now down in 10th place - and potentially dropping another spot if Everton beat QPR tonight - they are now as long as 9.28/1 to return to the Champions League. It's currently out to even money 2.01/1 to reach the top six.

I actually think the problem is that the man who was their top goalscorer last season was also their best defender and he has moved on. In his place they have neither goals nor a striker willing to work his backside off to put the opposition back four under pressure.

Luis Suarez was a special player when he had the ball. A brilliant finisher, a clever provider of chances to his fellow striker Daniel Sturridge. But he was also a tireless worker, making runs to find space to create openings and chasing down defenders to stop the other side building from the back.

With Sturridge out injured, and Suarez out in Spain, Liverpool don't have that nagging presence to unsettle the opposition. Mario Balotelli strolls through games at times, and Rodgers seems to have lost faith in his 16million summer signing, leaving him on the bench and playing without a recognised forward for the first half at Old Trafford.

The manager still has the backing of the boardroom at Anfield but he is starting to lose the supporters and this is a critical week. A Capital One Cup quarter-final at Bournemouth should be a chance to sort things out, but it has turned into a banana skin. Liverpool's odds of 2.0811/10 to beat the buoyant Championship side in 90 minutes looks a far better opportunity to lay rather than to back.

Rodgers won't sort out his defence until he's found an answer for his forward line. I think Tim Parkin would agree.