All season long I’ve been watching Liverpool’s league position and that of those around us and expecting to see the likes of United, Spurs, Everton and even Newcastle to close ground on us, while Arsenal, City and Chelsea pulled away. This is partly down to the natural pessimism of the football fan, but mostly because we just didn’t seem to have the squad to compete at the top level of English football. Of course, this squad was never set up to do that. You cut your cloth according to your means and to try to lift a team that was drifting in seventh and out of all European competition into title contention would take vast amounts of wealth.
At the outset I expected Liverpool to be challenging for a top 4 spot. When I say challenging I mean, having a reasonable chance of achieving the goal. If we fell short, as long as we went into the final months of the season with a top 4 spot in sight I knew I would be happy. Gradual and constant progression is the key. Don’t try to overreach and don’t undersell yourself either. I looked at the squad and I was happy that they could contend for a Champions League spot, and going into February that is exactly what we’re doing; and doing a rather superb job of it I have to say!
This team are not expensively assembled mercenaries or established world-class stars. Our manager is not a star of the world stage. At the start of the season who knew that the derided Cissokho, a reserve centre-back pairing of the overweight Toure and the error-prone Skrtel, a youth right back in Flanagan who had been cast on the scrap heap, a midfield of the over-priced Henderson, the aged and positionally weak Gerrard, and the lightweight Inter Milan reject Coutinho, and a strike force of Chelsea-reject Sturridge, youth player Sterling and Suarez the arch-enemy of all that football holds dear would be demolishing the top of the table team in twenty heart-stopping, breath-taking, magical minutes. Who knew?
So good have we been, in fact, that a word has crept into our vocabulary that hasn’t been heard around these parts since 2009 and hasn’t been seen in the flesh since before Sky invented football.
The Title
The Holy Grail. The Golden Fleece. The almost-mythical chalice. A whole generation of Liverpool fans have grown up not knowing what it’s like to see OUR club captain lift the great trophy over his head. To say we are in touching distance is an over-statement. We’re comfortably behind three very good teams and there’s still a third of the season left to play.
And yet…
There IS a chance. Like the heady days of 2009 we head to Craven Cottage on the back of some strong form. It was the last time we talked about the title round these parts. In fact, after Yossi Benayoun’s 92nd minute goal we even sang about the title.
Chelsea’s draw at West Bromwich Albion has only served to heighten expectations for this game to pile pressure on the players. If we win, we could be 4 points off the top with 12 to play, and two of our title challengers to visit Anfield.
Talk of the title is a distraction, however. Chances are we are going to come up short. That’s not pessimism, it’s realism. There is just too much that needs to swing in our favour for it to happen. It’s a nice dream but the reality is that we are competing for third of fourth place. We can’t let the chance of achieving our pre-season goal (and comfortably at that) be obscured by a failure to win the title. It’s unfair on the players.
This has been a magical season so far. The recent wins against Spurs, Everton and Arsenal have got the adrenaline pumping and we feel like we can beat anyone on our day, and we can. The only problem is that we have proven that we can slip up against anyone as well.
But, we can dream. We can count the games off as they come by praying for the teams around us to slip up (and in some cases causing the slip up ourselves). We can check the league table every day, as we close in on the end of the season. We can work out the permutations needed to see us lifting the silverware in May. But while we dream let’s not forget that we shouldn’t even be here.
The real achievement this season will not be winning the league. The real achievement has been gained already.
The mere fact that we are talking about it. Dreaming about it. Says everything that needs to be said about this group of misfits and their rookie, young, tactically-naive manager.