Much is made of the fact it’s 23 years since Liverpool were crowned champions of England and won the league title. It is the one club trophy that has eluded Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher for their entire careers, and the fans crave a title win. Yet the years without a league title have by no means been trophy-less. From the 2001 treble winning season to the historic 5th European cup win in 2005, Liverpool football club have continued to win trophies. Including community shields, there has been 13 trophies won by Liverpool since they last won a league title.
There must be something in the air on European nights at Anfield. Something which possesses the home side’s players and completely turns the tables, no matter who the opposition. Even last season during the memorable away goals defeat to Zenit St Petersburg in the Europa league, the home fixture was just something else. It gave Liverpool fans a glimpse of the past, and hopefully a sign that nights such as these will return under Brendan Rodgers. However, we won nothing last season, I hear you saying. What’s the point?
The point is that sadly we are no longer the force we once were. Anfield is no longer a fortress for opposing teams to approach with trepidation, match plans only of damage limitation. Due to the amount of money pumped into teams such as Chelsea and Manchester City, as well as Manchester United and Arsenal both enjoying periods of dominance domestically, Liverpool have fallen behind in the league. It is a fact that we are made aware of all too often by rival fans. Yet we have continued to regularly win or challenge for domestic trophies despite being left far behind in the league. In 2005, on paper we simply were not the best team in Europe. Our squad was certainly not the strongest, and domestically we flopped. Despite the defeats to Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough and Southampton and a 5th place finish in the premier league, we were the winners of the most coveted prize in European football. How? A squad containing the likes of Antonio Nunez and Djimi Traore, beaten home and away by Birmingham City, are triumphant over giants such as Juventus, Chelsea and AC Milan. The major point is the consistency. Speaking as a Liverpool fan, we were awesome in Europe that season. Despite being lucky to make it out of a group due to an unfortunate defeat away at Monaco and a goalless draw at home to Deportivo, we did it. It is almost as if as soon as Steven Gerrard’s strike hit the net on that night against Olympiacos, we were destined.
If the most die-hard fan were to review Liverpool’s 04-05 premier league campaign, they would struggle to make a case for us being in the top four English sides. Yet we were the European cup kings. And so on to the following season; a similarly disappointing Premier League campaign, yet the FA cup winners. Here may I point out that all the teams leaving us behind in the league are involved in the domestic cups too. An obvious point I understand, yet we are consistently top dogs over them in the cups. From a fans perspective it is frustrating that our cup form cannot be transferred to the league.
Even when we are beaten in cups, it is more often than not a freak result against lower league opposition/underdogs. The 04-05 season saw us embarrassingly knocked out of the FA cup away at lower league Burnley, due to a farcical own goal by Djimi Traore (who would later on start the champions league final in Istanbul). Bar Chelsea in a few finals (2004-05 League cup, 2011-12 FA cup) it is extremely unusual for us to be knocked out of a cup by any of the “top four” which we used to be a part of. The League cup semi-final victory against moneybags Manchester City was accompanied by rousing noise from the crowd, but left many wondering why this can’t happen in the league.
The answer is simple; modern day Liverpool squads were made for cup competitions. To put it in terms of an athlete, we are capable of competing with the best for a sprint (or a competition with fewer games) but always let ourselves down with stamina events (or a league campaign). This is the reason we often have decent records against the bigger clubs but frustrate ourselves and kill off our title chances with poor results against smaller clubs. Take the 2008-09 season as a perfect example. We lost twice that year in the premier league. Let me repeat that. Twice we lost, away to Tottenham and Middlesbrough. Yet we failed to win the league thanks to 11 draws. As a club there is some kind of mental block that prevents us going consistently through a whole season raising our game to beat the title challengers, and getting the job done week in, week out against the smaller clubs. Incidentally, during that season, we were knocked out of both domestic cups in the 4th round, and the European cup at the quarter finals. Is this because Rafael Benitez knew what now people are realising? That to compete in every domestic competition successfully is extremely difficult. He had conquered Europe in his first season then snaffled the FA cup in his second. From then on his focus was the league.
The return of Kenny Dalglish was supposed to bring the old glory days back to Liverpool. Many see his second coming as a failure; in my opinion it unfortunately was. The one thing he did was fit the Liverpool trend and despite an extremely disappointing league campaign, we found ourselves league cup winners and FA cup runners up. This is a trend Brendan Rodgers will look to change as he approaches his second season with Liverpool – the club who have adapted only to cups.
