WHEN the FA Cup Final was over and the game was lost, most Liverpool fans started the process of evaluating what kind of season we’d had, and what might be possible for the club next season.
Losing the last game of the season at Swansea, finishing 8th and trailing behind Everton and Newcastle in the league meant we had to look at the season and ask ourselves some pretty searching questions – how good is our team?
How quickly can you turn round that kind of end league position? What can we honestly achieve next season?
Like most Liverpool fans, I think the performances of the team last season deserved much better results than we got, and those results would have translated into a higher points total and a higher league finish. We all watched the games at Anfield where teams were dominated but not finished off – we all saw them hit the woodwork 33 times, miss five penalties in the league alone and saw the likes of John Ruddy and Michel Vorm come to Anfield and have the game of their lives.
Don’t forget either that some of the performances from Liverpool last season were amongst the best we’ve seen for years – Arsenal at home for example, where the team played some fantastic football and still somehow managed to lose the game 2-1, or the home performances against Manchester City and Chelsea in the league, where in spells the team played some fantastic stuff.
Having said all of that though, every single Liverpool manager there’s ever been (Kenny included) will tell you that our club understands that the league table doesn’t lie. We finished 8th for no other reason than we deserved to finish there – 16 points ahead of Bolton, who were relegated; and 18 points behind Arsenal, who got the last Champions League place from the league.
As fans, we have to face up to the fact that we can’t realistically expect to click our fingers and close a gap like that in the space of a single season. Already I’ve seen blogs and tweets talking about the players that Liverpool should be signing from Euro 2012 and Rodgers spending big to get the club back into the title contention.
All of that is fine, and it’s part of what makes pre-season an entertaining time to be a fan, but we really have to be realistic. The reality is that if Liverpool finished 6th next season, and were six points off a Champions League spot, then that would be progress. No-one would ever say that the top four was an impossibility – Liverpool still have plenty of individual players who are good enough to be in that bracket – but it’s time for us as fans to have realistic expectations. A challenge for the top four, even one that saw us finish 5th or 6th, would be significant progress on where we ended up last year.
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Winning the Carling Cup was a great experience for fans and players alike. People forget that we knocked Chelsea and Manchester City out of that cup, and winning it was a real achievement. Despite that, most of us, if we’re being honest, would much rather see that meaningful challenge for the top four, watch the team getting a lot closer to those Champions League places and starting to attract some of the top level players.
It’ll be good progress for the club if, in a year’s time, we can see the team starting to play the way Rodgers wants them to play, adopting a successful, entertaining style of football and getting results on a consistent basis in the league, and in turn mounting a challenge for the top four and a better finish. Consistency is one of the hardest things to achieve, the ability to go and get results home and away and week in, week out. That’s why making progress in the league is a lot harder than winning cup competitions, however good it feels to see your team lifting the trophy at the end of it.
Lots of us have seen the video footage of Shanks with the league championship trophy where he talked about Europe, talked about the FA Cup and concluded by pointing at the league trophy and declaring “this is our bread and butter, and this is the one that we want”. Cup competitions have always been a nice bonus and a cracking day out at Wembley, but the reality is that performing and stringing together results in the league is where we need to be.
The fact of the matter remains that the league is where great teams are judged, and it’s where Liverpool have to start to make real progress on the road to challenging not just for the top four, but in time for the title itself. Because when everything else is said and done, that’s what we all want to achieve most of all.
Find me on twitter @rossco1981
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Challenging for fourth and the odd trophy run is the most LFC can do for the foreseeable future. Sadly the EPL is now a spending race between City and Chelsea. All other clubs will be left in the dust.
I think we will strugle for fourth with our squad because the top four teams from this season are going out and buying world class players,the premiere league is just all about money and if we are not willing to spend a lot then our team is just going to get further behind.
Given our current roster and new league 1, mid table manager.. I expect an 8th to 10th place finish. Unless some MAJOR signings are made in the off-season and a lot of mediocre british crap that we have collected is shown the door..the first 5 games will be very telling.. a poor start and the clamoring for a new manager will start…
We are not buying in any talent I think , so if we get 6th that will be an achievement in itself!