My Kop are not one-man team, Bren hails life without Luis

BRENDAN RODGERS reckons his Kop kids have proved there is life without Luis Suarez.

Liverpool were without their suspended top scorer for the first time this Premier League campaign as they fought back to beat West Ham.

Boss Rodgers admits he was never concerned about his team’s ability to perform without 10-goal Suarez — but he was delighted to show critics that Liverpool are not a one-man team.

He said: “My focus when I came in was about the collective. We must all share the ball, we must all share the goals, we must share the workload.

“I had great belief in the players that we could score goals and create goals.

“I think you’ve seen today, even without Luis, the quality in the team and the fight in the team. And that was very pleasing.”

Rodgers was quick to hail the performance of his “outstanding” stand-in striker Jonjo Shelvey, whose pressure on James Collins resulted in the Reds’ winner. The Kop boss added: “In this country it’s always very traditional with the targetman.

“But you’ve seen young Jonjo at 20 years of age playing the No 9 role in a different way.

“He dropped into midfield, combined with the midfielders to make the fourth man, and was a threat when he was in and around the box.”

Ex-Hammers Glen Johnson and Joe Cole also scored as Liverpool moved just four points off the Champions League places with home games against Aston Villa and Fulham up next. But Rodgers said: “We had a difficult opening fixture list and tried to couple that with trying to play a certain way of football.

“But certainly over these last couple of months we’ve been progressing.”

Sam Allardyce was left ruing a serious hamstring injury to the influential Mohamed Diame, who could now be out for 12 weeks.

The West Ham boss said: “It was a bizarre game. I wouldn’t have expected five goals.

“It’s disappointing to lose but it’s even more disappointing when your most creative player gets a serious injury, or what looks like a serious injury.”