Maxi Rodríguez ready to make his case before Liverpool's hung jury

Maxi Rodríguez would not be a Liverpool player had John W Henry completed his takeover 12 months ago. Aged 29 and given a lucrative three-year contract late in the negotiations that secured his exit from Atlético Madrid, the Argentina international is among many at Anfield who represent the antithesis of Henry's sabermetric approach to the future. Not that calculus ever prevented a player from making his mark. With one toe-poke against Bolton Wanderers last Sunday Rodríguez released Liverpool from the ignominy of the relegation zone, delivered a first league away win since April and gave the manager, Roy Hodgson, the first three points on his travels in 14 months. He also lifted a sense of foreboding surrounding the encounter with Chelsea tomorrow while enhancing his reputation before a hung Liverpool jury. The 86th‑minute winner capped a fine overall performance from Rodríguez at Bolton. The midfielder started due only to Dirk Kuyt's ankle injury and his place tomorrow is threatened by the Dutchman's rapid recovery. But 10 months into an indifferent Liverpool career Rodríguez admits his adaptation period is over. The ability that brought 41 caps for his country and the captaincy at Atlético, he says, was not misplaced during transit in January. "After eight years in Spain where the style of play is not nearly as physical as it is in England I did need some time to adapt to playing here," he said. "Football is football all over the world, you always play with the ball but it does take some time to get used to new styles. Now, though, I feel I understand English football very well. I feel as though I know my team-mates a lot better and they know me, and that is helping me play a lot better." It obviously did not help Rodríguez's adjustment that the manager who brought him to Anfield, Rafael Benítez, was gone five months later or that, as Hodgson stresses and the appointment of Damien Comolli as director of football strategy illustrates, he is at a club in transition. The midfielder believes there are more profound differences between Hodgson and Benítez than their recent public assessments on the state of the Liverpool squad. "All managers have their own style and the new manager who arrived in the summer has a different one to the manager who left. They are not particularly similar in the way they do things or what they want us to do, so we have all had to adapt to the style of today's Liverpool manager. The important thing is that we have the players to do that, to let the team play higher up the pitch as the manager wants. We have not had a good start to the season at all but now we are getting our confidence back and in a little while we will be going the right way up the table." Consecutive wins over Blackburn, Bolton and Napoli have improved belief at Liverpool but Hodgson has resisted every invitation to proclaim that a corner has been turned. Whether his reticence is based on the impending visit of the champions, fluctuating performance levels against Bolton and the Italians or an acceptance the Anfield faithful is still to be won over is unclear. Late, dramatic victories such as the last two games do resonate, however, and Rodríguez is adamant there will be no inferiority complex against Carlo Ancelotti's team. "The most important thing with a new manager is results. If you are winning games and the players are full of confidence, then they can change styles much more quickly. If things go wrong and results do not come, then it is much more complicated. That's why the win at Bolton was very important for all of us. We have been working hard and we deserved to win. It felt like it could be the start of our comeback. "We have always believed in our team and in ourselves as players and we believe that this team can beat anyone. We are in a good frame of mind and we are starting to show our ability after a problem with our confidence early in the season. There is no reason why we cannot win comfortably at home."