Sterling has understandably been unable to sustain his form from the first month of the season, though he was much better yesterday. He's 19, and we're looking for him to do everything, in a team which does nothing to drag players away from him, or make use of his pace. I think he and Balotelli will definitely be much better off when/if Sturridge comes back, just because Sturridge is good at keeping defenders occupied in a way which creates room for others, which is a big weakness for Lambert, Balotelli and Borini, who can all be easily marked by a single player, and don't move in a way which forces the other team to lose their shape.
Balotelli is worse than anyone could have imagined. He's keeping himself out of trouble, but he's not troubling goalkeepers either. January may be the tipping point as long as we're not like 12 points behind by then. If we overhaul the team, its a huge risk, as with our transfer record we could become even worse. If we don't, we just persist with players who are letting us down week-in week-out. We can't trust Rodgers and the commitee to spend much, but we can't pretend this squad is of the required quality for the rest of the season. Think we'll probably go for another window like we did in January 2013, couple of buys to come straight into the team, £20-25m, hope it works out.
Probably a centreback and a striker. Maybe more if we can offload a couple of players as well.