Brendan Rodgers says the second half of Liverpool’s season is going to be better than the first and, though there is still plenty of time for events to prove otherwise, two wins since Christmas have at least allowed last season’s runners-up to reach the mid-point of their campaign in good heart.

Some might point out Burnley away and Swansea at home do not represent the most daunting of festive fixtures, although Burnley’s point at Manchester City put Liverpool’s Boxing Day win at Turf Moor into a more flattering perspective, but Rodgers has found a way of playing since the heavy defeat at Manchester United that suits his present needs and the players at his disposal. Liverpool are not only performing convincingly but satisfyingly, winning while upholding the club’s best traditions.

Emre Can is a good case in point, coming into a back three and looking both comfortable on the ball and confident about the defensive requirements of the position. It has already been suggested that this deeper role could be the German’s best position and he certainly looks capable of staying in the side and earning the run of games that has so far eluded him. David Moyes is reportedly interested in Can on the basis that he can offer him first-team football but the former Bayer Leverkusen player, since joining the backline in the win at Burnley, looks completely at home. Even an elbow in the face from Jonjo Shelvey late in the first half did not put Can off his game. The Swansea player might hear more about the incident once the replays have been fully studied but Can started the second half rising commandingly on halfway to win an aerial challenge with Wilfried Bony, something the Anfield crowd appreciated is not the easiest thing to accomplish.

It was not Can’s searching pass forward that brought about the first goal. That was Mamadou Sakho finding the eventual scorer, Alberto Moreno, on the left. But the point about Rodgers’ back three is that all of them can pass.

Martin Skrtel can do it, both long and short, and one early Can pass to Philippe Coutinho might have brought a breakthrough in the first few minutes had not Moreno overrun the final ball in his eagerness to get forward. Along with Can the Spanish wing-back was another of Liverpool’s successes on the night. Even if it did look as if he shinned his opening goal, it was still a great counter-attacking passing move that began at the back and involved him twice. It would not be surprising to find the Liverpool manager pinning a picture of it on his office wall, since it fitted the Rodgers blueprint perfectly.

While Liverpool’s second goal was less textbook and more comic, it would still have pleased Rodgers almost as much. Lukasz Fabianski made the mistake, but it was Adam Lallana’s pace and determination to press as high up the field as possible that took the goalkeeper by surprise. Most other forwards would have made a token effort at hurrying the goalkeeper but Lallana attacked the ball with a confidence that he could reach it. With Lallana scoring an excellent second from Coutinho’s neat backheel and also involved in the spirited counter that saw Raheem Sterling crash a shot against the post in the second half it was a good day all round for Liverpool’s oft-maligned summer signings or at least the ones that played. It was less of a good day for Sterling as a centre-forward for, despite having the edge in pace and a good deal of space in which to work over the 83 minutes he played, the striker struggled all night to get the better of Federico Fernández. Admittedly some of the Swansea defender’s tactics were underhand, at one point in the first half he had to be spoken to for trailing a provocative arm across Sterling’s face under the referee’s nose after the ball had rolled out of play, but his impression of a human octopus was just enough to keep a dangerous opponent at bay.

Sterling did get round him once but was forced so wide he could find only the side netting. Yet, as Rodgers will no doubt be saying in the new year, it is more about the team than the individual. Lallana still had a couple of defenders to beat when he accepted Coutinho’s pass for Liverpool’s third. Fernández was one of them, and this time he never even got close. When Lallana was withdrawn early it was only for the crowd to give him an ovation and Anfield obliged. On this form even Steven Gerrard is not missed.