• Manager believes there is a campaign to get him sacked • Frailties in the defence are still a worry for the club

Brendan Rodgers is the same but different. As his team have got worse, he has got better. There were contradictions in the Northern Irishman’s arguments but conviction to his sentiments. The man who won the Manager of the Year award 16 months ago believes it would be an injustice if he secures an unwanted victory in the sack race now. “I am the same guy who nearly won us the league, but better,” he said.

It is not so much Rodgers Mk2 as new improved Brendan, he suggested. Certainly his self-belief remains intact. A first win in seven games prompted Rodgers, in the manner of his best team, to launch a swift counterattack. Undaunted by a recent record showing seven defeats and only 16 goals in Liverpool’s last 16 league games, he presented his case for continued employment with idiosyncratic eloquence.

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“I think I have shown in the early stages of my management – without being arrogant – that with a talented group of players I can compete at the top end of the league. I know how to manage top players. If you give me the tools, I’ll do the work.” The inference, for the majority of the Liverpool side who were at Anfield during last season’s slump to sixth place, was damning, but Rodgers has a capacity to produce inadvertently revealing comments.

In any case, a performance of two halves, featuring attacking flair and defensive frailties, highlighted recurring themes in his reign. High-class teams are constructed on solid foundations; Rodgers’ sides seem to be built on sand. Further evidence of Simon Mignolet’s inadequacies was compounded by confusion and individual errors among his back three. This was old, unimproved Liverpool but at least they could savour a throwback to happier days.

The sight of Daniel Sturridge scoring twice for the first time since the 4-3 win over Swansea that ignited 2014’s title charge prompted thoughts of a surge characterised by high-octane, high-risk encounters. “There are very short memories in football,” Rodgers said. “The team was eighth when I got here. We built a team to excite people throughout European football, that should have won the league.”

Yet it remains a moot point if Rodgers or Luis Suárez was the catalyst. If Liverpool are yet to recover from the striker’s sale, at least Danny Ings shares the Uruguayan’s energetic ethos, although not his talent. Sturridge enjoyed the presence of an irrepressible sidekick, who was ever willing to exhaust defenders. Sturridge, like the classy Philippe Coutinho, meets Rodgers’ definition of a “top player” who has benefited from his tutelage. Yet with Jordan Henderson injured and Steven Gerrard, Raheem Sterling and Suárez gone, they are the sole survivors of the forward-thinking six who almost swept Liverpool to glory.

“All the good work gets forgotten,” said Rodgers. “That’s how it works. It seems the focus has not been on what’s gone on and what we’ve been missing, but more about getting me out of the club. That’s sad.” His contention is that he is not paranoid, but that unspecified people are out to get him. “There has been a frenzy, there is no doubt about that, to get me out of here,” he added. “Whether that’s a Liverpool hysteria or big-club hysteria, I am not so sure.”

His Aston Villa counterpart, Tim Sherwood, could sympathise. “Every manager is under pressure; that’s the nature of the job now,” he said and, after only procuring one point from his last six games, he should be able to testify to the difficulties. “It’s not the same job as it was 10 or 12 years ago. Everyone’s got their own opinions: faceless people out there, you’ve got social media, you’ve got more pundits than players.” Sherwood has experience of being both.

The greater problem for Rodgers is not outsiders’ opinions but the availability of outstanding managers. Carlo Ancelotti was touted as a possible successor. The normally loquacious Rodgers has not felt the need to talk to a triple Champions League-winning manager. “No. If I spoke to every manager we’re linked with, I’d speak to 13 managers,” he said. “I’d be busy ringing.”

He has enough other issues to occupy his time. A manager who has spent £205m on new players in the past two summers has bought himself a little more time but Sunday’s Merseyside derby, more than the availability of Ancelotti and Jürgen Klopp, looms large. Rather than the managerial giants, Rodgers’ immediate concern should be his defenders’ enduring inability to cope with sizeable strikers.

Everton’s Romelu Lukaku ought to be buoyed by the way Rudy Gestede terrorised Liverpool’s timid defence. “We’ve got one of the biggest threats in the air in the Premier League and that’s our best avenue to score goals,” said Sherwood after Gestede struck twice. When he captained Blackburn, Sherwood’s team-mates included the division’s record scorer, Alan Shearer. It has not prompted him to ask his summer signing to study DVDs of Shearer. “They’re all too young to remember him,” he said.

Man of the match James Milner (Liverpool)