LIVERPOOL can add an extra 15,000 seats to the capacity of Anfield. They can clear the surrounding streets, and build an eye-catching new mezzanine and cantilever Main Stand with the space created.

They can spend £150m, more even, bringing an ageing stadium in line with its modern-day Premier League equivalents. It might just help the club narrow a widening financial gap, too.

But whilst such developments are likely to take four, even five years to implement, there is one improvement that needs to happen much sooner. And until it does, Anfield just won’t feel like home.

Of all the statistics wheeled out to ‘prove’ how 2012 has been a year of regression at Liverpool – and there seem to be plenty – perhaps the most alarming has been the one which shows the decline of “Fortress Anfield”.

This win over a rather desperate Reading side was the Reds’ third home league victory of 2012. Their third. In 14 games.

It is a damning indictment. Especially given the fact that their other two successes – against Everton in March and Chelsea in May – were achieved against sides that were significantly weakened due to impending cup clashes.

Sure the statistics don’t tell the full story. They don’t tell of chances created, of dominance in possession, of goal-line clearances or rattled woodwork.

But they don’t lie, either. Liverpool’s home form simply has to improve, if their accomplishments are to come anywhere close to matching their ambition.

At least they got the monkey off their back here. It was tighter than it should have been, nervier than anyone at Anfield would have wanted, and had they not held on for their single-goal victory then the inquests would have been loud and thorough.

“You don’t want it to keep dragging on,” admitted Brendan Rodgers afterwards. “It’s been a long time coming, and we should have had three points here long before today.”

In the end, it took a goal from the 17-year-old Raheem Sterling to settle matters.

The winger becomes the second youngest goalscorer in the club’s 110-year history, behind only Michael Owen. His impact at Anfield has been comparable.

Sterling, along with the terrific Glen Johnson, was the game’s outstanding performer. His 29th-minute strike, arrowed across Alex McCarthy after an astute run from left to right, was taken with the kind of aplomb Anfield was accustomed to during the early days of Owen.

“It’s a part of the game we’ve been working on,” said Rodgers. “The players on the outside, we’re trying to get them in the positions so they can make those runs.

“He’s got good pace, Raheem, so once he’s on the inside he can break the line of the back four. We’ve been doing a lot of work on that on the training field.”

One would also assume that Liverpool’s training ground work involves plenty of shooting practice. Rodgers is still waiting for that work to bear fruit.

Time and again, chances came and went. Sterling, Johnson, Nuri Sahin, Jonjo Shelvey and, especially, Luis Suarez were all guilty. It left the Reds, frustratingly, clinging to a win that should have been assured inside the opening 45 minutes.

Indeed, had Brad Jones – deputising for Pepe Reina, who missed out through injury for the first time in his Reds career – not been alert to race from his line and deny Garath McCleary late on, then Rodgers’ winless home league run would have been extended by another fortnight. That would have been harsh, given Liverpool’s dominance for large parts of the game, but shows the fine margins with which they are operating. Their inability to kill teams off at Anfield has haunted them for too long. It needs addressing.

Still, at least they got the job done here. There were positives aplenty in the performance of Rodgers’ teenage trio. Sterling grabbed the headlines, and rightly so, but Suso’s development is equally impressive, whilst Andre Wisdom turned in a display of maturity and composure, even if he was caught out of position for McCleary’s late chance.

Those three have, quite rightly, made themselves impossible to drop, a fact which says as much about them as it does the likes of Jordan Henderson, Joe Cole or Stewart Downing. Rodgers will be hoping his young charges can help solidify the club’s home record. Because if they are serious about challenging at the top end of the Premier League any time soon, they will need an Anfield improvement.