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'Nice to be back, now let's improve and go again' by John Brennan

Thanks for the ride, Reds. It’s been, well…let’s just say I’ll send you my medication bill! A season with more ups than downs but which is likely to end on the biggest downer of all. The Premier League Trophy is going to be in L4 on Sunday but its presence is likely to be fleeting, a mere nod to the mathematical possibility of us snatching the title from City’s grasp.

 

In the cold light of day, we’ll no doubt look back on this season as the start of something special, but at this juncture, a sense of emptiness dominates: after 35 games and 80 points, we needed 7 points out of 9 to be Champions of England. After 37 games and 81 points, we need a miracle.

 

Platitudes will be trotted out this week. Rightly so. Rodgers has worked miracles in such a short time. I’ve said it continuously: I haven’t enjoyed watching us as much since 1988. Our attacking play has been breathtaking. The workrate and the team spirit – never more apparent than after City at home – have been admirable. Individually, we’ve seen wonderful performances (Suarez, Sturridge, Coutinho to name but a few). Youngsters (Flanagan and Sterling) have once again started to come through. Anfield has become a fortress again. 15 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats at The Shrine. 46 points out of 54. Compared to 33 last season and 27 (gulp!) the season before, it is an astounding improvement.

 

For all the criticism of our away form, we’ve picked up 35 points out of a possible 57, scoring 48(!) goals. This may seem decent, especially when compared to 2012-2013, where we picked up 28 points on the road, but it’s just not enough. Apart from United (80) in 2010-2011, the minimum needed to win the Title has been 86 points. Sometimes, it’s not been enough (most notably, for us, in 2008-2009 where it was only good enough for second).

 

In that season, we took 43 points at home AND away! This year, for every Spurs there’s been a Hull. For every United there’s been a Newcastle. For every Cardiff there’s been an Arsenal. One point out of 12 away from home against the top five tells its own story. We need to top 40 points away from home next season and maintain our record at Anfield (which will mean beating United, City, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton…and probably avoiding defeat against Chelsea).

 

So, it’s nice to be back. Nice to be working out how we need to improve on this season’s extraordinary haul in order to win the thing next year. Nice that other teams’ supporters revel in our ‘failure’ (how’s that top four ‘bid’ coming along, Bloos?). There’s been nothing more grating this season than hearing ‘Neutrals all want Liverpool to win the Title.’ I never believed it and happily, confirmation that it was a lie all along has come this week in the form of the new Gerrard song. Indifference to us winning the Title should have sat uncomfortably with us all. Almost as if rival fans saw this season as a once-off and that we’d be reduced to mediocre top six battles in the coming years.

 

But in those mocking chants, we should hear trepidation. The fear that we’re back as a force to be reckoned with. That Rodgers is on to something special. That after two years in the job, he’s taken us on in leaps and bounds. Fighting against established Championship-winning teams like City and Chelsea. Going head-to-head with Arsenal, who’ve qualified for the Champions League for umpteen years in a row. Sweeping aside all and sundry in wave after wave of attacking football. Seeing visiting teams fold at Anfield.

 

We’ve got to, to coin a phrase, ‘go again’ next season. Except – and this is the brutal reality of this great Club – we have to do better. The players. The staff. And yes, the manager. I wrote last week that we were entitled to be angry with the management. That may seem harsh given the strides we’ve made. But for me, no matter what we do next season in the Championship, in the Cups or in Europe, this is the one that got away.

 

There’s been no Keeganesque collapse. If we were being churlish, we could speak about 1 point out of 6. But we could also say 34 from 39. But in those 13 games, like it or not, we conceded 20 goals. Granted, we scored an astonishing 41. But had we learned from our mistakes, tightened up at the back and conceded, oh I don’t know, even ONE goal a game, then we could be going into Sunday’s game knowing that the Premier League Trophy was here to stay.

 

But that debate is for another day. For now, we can be proud of what we’ve done, confident in our manager that he will learn from our failings and most of all certain that we are back, where we belong, challenging for Titles on the last day of the season. They say you’ve got to lose one before you win one. If that really is the case, then I’m looking forward to us giving it another bash next season.  

 

John Brennan


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