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No controversy, no DVDs required and no work for the Football Association courtesy of Luis Suárez this weekend; just a decisive goal from him that brought three rare home points for Liverpool and spared them another interrogation into their forgotten art of finishing.

It has been easy at times to forget why £22.8m was spent on the Uruguay international. But for a fifth league goal of the season from Suárez this would have been another tale of missed opportunity for Kenny Dalglish’s side.

From the opening whistle Liverpool swarmed relentlessly towards the visiting goal, finding space behind the QPR defenders and engineering chances almost at will. For 45 minutes they squandered them all, with Suárez the chief culprit. The home side won three corners in the opening three minutes and their dominance was unrelenting as Neil Warnock’s side were restricted to the occasional long-distance shot on the break until a desperate late rally.

Suárez’s wasteful first half commenced when he placed a free header straight into the grasp of goalkeeper Radek Cerny when found unmarked by Stewart Downing. He was then unfortunate with an attempt to beat Cerny inside his near post when released by the excellent Dirk Kuyt, Next he sliced horribly wide with his right foot when he should have taken Maxi Rodriguez’s pass with the left, before being foiled at close range by the visiting keeper and sending the rebound out for a throw-in on the opposite side of the pitch. But he was not alone.

Rodríguez also benefited from Kuyt’s industry and vision to race clean through on goal only for Cerny to produce a fine save low to his left. It would not be the only time the Czech thwarted the Argentinian. Daniel Agger allowed another Downing centre to roll under his boot in front of the Rangers’ goal on the stroke of half-time yet, with Anfield rueing a familiar script at the interval, Liverpool re-emerged for the second half with some overdue potency.

Charlie Adam, afforded too much room throughout by the QPR midfield and prospering accordingly, delivered a delightful cross from the left that sailed over the heads of three visiting defenders. Suárez was left scandalously unmarked in the centre and duly headed beyond Cerny for his first goal in the Premier League since 1 October.

LiverpoolQPRPremier LeaguePremier League 2011-12Andy Hunterguardian.co.uk

After a match-winning performance at Bolton the Argentinian has set his sights on overturning Chelsea

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.”

LiverpoolRoy HodgsonRafael BenítezAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

The portents were not exactly encouraging for Roy Hodgson and Liverpool in Trabzon. Absences, enforced or otherwise, had complicated their interest in a competition the manager conceded fell a distant second to the Premier League and, as the thunderstorms rolled off the Kacker Mountains and Trabzonspor led, the watershed Hodgson had denied witnessing against Manchester City threatened to follow. His relief on the final whistle, however, showed this did matter.

With a clenched fist salute, a yelp that pierced the night air and a bear-hug for his assistant Sammy Lee, Hodgson demonstrated that, regardless what his team selection and pre-match comments may have suggested, embarking on a prolonged European campaign as a Liverpool manager was a prerequisite to any honeymoon period. “You’re Alone Here” taunted the fanatical home fans on one banner, but Liverpool will be in the hat with 47 other clubs in the Europa League group draw.

“Liverpool are a team with remarkable European pedigree so it would have been very sad to go out in the qualifying stages,” said Hodgson. “I think this is a very, very good victory. We were looking down the barrel here coming down to Trabzon, you saw their incredible support, you saw how fanatical their fans are. To get a result here was something important that will stand us in good stead for plenty of other matches throughout the coming season.”

Liverpool matured with the game but then they could hardly have started worse. Only poor finishing by Trabzonspor and another vital contribution from Jose Reina kept Hodgson’s team in the tie before the opening 25 minutes had elapsed.

The Liverpool manager was hamstrung to some extent in his selection but, having declined to risk Steven Gerrard, Daniel Agger and Maxi Rodríguez due to various yet slight ailments (all are expected to be fit for Sunday’s league game with West Bromwich Albion) he took a major gamble in sparing Fernando Torres and Milan Jovanovic the journey. A Kop zealot would hesitate to show as much faith in the remainder of this Liverpool squad than Hodgson did in both encounters with the Turkish Cup winners. In fairness, his early days as manager are complicated by having to assess all options during an unrelenting, demanding sequence of matches. Most importantly, his decisions and his faith were vindicated.

It was the absence of Javier Mascherano that had the most detrimental effect on Liverpool’s fragile start. The displays at Manchester City on Monday and in Trabzon, where the hosts frequently by-passed a ponderous, rigid and soft midfield centre of Lucas Leiva and Christian Poulsen, have demonstrated the importance of the Argentinian. An anticipated move to Barcelona would leave a sizable void in this team but his replacements did eventually wrestle the tie in Liverpool’s favour.

Trabzonspor levelled the tie on aggregate with just four minutes on the clock. Dirk Kuyt, who will not be joining Rafael Benítez at Internazionale, was dispossessed deep inside his own half by Gustavo Coleman. The Argentinian’s shot-cross dissected the centre of the Liverpool defence and the unmarked Teofilo Gutiérrez prodded past Reina. Alarmingly simple, and the tone of the night did not alter until Trabzonspor’s energy and adventure drained late in the first half and anxiety plus Liverpool took over.

A characteristic block from an airborne Jamie Carragher prevented Ibrahima Yattara finding the target after the visitors were caught on the break from their own corner. Reina, targeted by lasers from the crowd, tipped a low drive from Colman wide seconds later and Yattara, the captain, squandered a glorious chance when he headed Burak Yilmaz’s free-kick wide when unmarked in front of goal. Liverpool did not respond with an accurate shot of their own until the 43rd minute, when Lucas drove straight at Onur Kivrak, but they had at least stemmed the tide.

Poulsen and Lucas began to impose themselves, Glen Johnson started to find space down the right, Joe Cole, on the receiving end of several fouls, improved the supply to the previously isolated David Ngog and Trabzonspor players and crowd alike were suddenly afflicted by doubt. They were silenced completely when Liverpool capped a vastly improved second-half display with two goals in the final seven minutes.

Ngog had gone close twice before helping to secure Liverpool’s passage into tomorrow’s group draw when, after Johnson had easily beaten the left back Hrvoje Cale and crossed low, he pressured Remzi Kacar into slicing the ball in off his own near post. With two minutes remaining the impressive substitute, Dani Pacheco, forced Kivrak into a desperate low save and Kuyt’s predatory instincts took over. The Dutch international converted into an empty net from close range. His Liverpool career, and his club’s involvement in Europe this season, is far from over.

Europa LeagueLiverpoolAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk