Winning the title could be LFC's greatest achievement (ESPN article)

by Dave Usher for ESPN

My colleague Steve Kelly wrote a fine piece earlier this week in which he pointed out that should Liverpool win their remaining five games this would be, statistically at least, the club’s best ever season. It got me thinking though, not only would it be the best in terms of points tally and goals scored; you could also make a very strong case for it being the club’s greatest ever accomplishment, taking into account their starting point and the level of competition.

That debate is -- fingers crossed -- for another time though; there are still five massive ‘cup finals’ to be safely negotiated first. Whatever happens from here on in, however, in terms of entertainment and the style of football this is already perhaps the most enjoyable season I’ve had following the Reds, perhaps because it’s all been so unexpected. Who could have predicted that Liverpool would top the table with just five games remaining, and be closing in on 100 goals for the season? It’s been an incredible campaign so far, and the only thing missing at the moment is silverware. There is no doubt that what we’ve been witnessing from the Reds this season has been something special and the club have not been this close to the ‘Holy Grail’ since their last Championship success back in 1990.

It’s fair to say Kopites have been spoilt over the years. The 1960s were a wonderful time to be a Liverpool supporter, I envy the likes of my Dad who got to live through the club’s resurgence under Bill Shankly. The 70s were even more successful and incredibly the 80s were better still (on the pitch at least, two tragedies and high unemployment in the city made for an incredibly testing decade on Merseyside). Whilst younger Reds did not get to experience those glory days, they’ve not exactly been starved of success either.

The 90s were awful by Anfield standards but still yielded an FA Cup win in 1992 and a League Cup success in 1994. That’s more than many clubs have managed in their entire history and let’s not forget that for all their ‘troubles’ the club remained a permanent fixture in the top half of the table. The overwhelming majority of football fans would love to have a decade as ‘unsuccessful’ as that. Even when Liverpool have been bad, they’ve been good by the standards of most. That’s something that as fans, we often take for granted.

The ‘noughties’ weren’t too bad either, relatively speaking. A cup treble in 2001, a League Cup in 2003 Istanbul in 2005, an FA Cup win in 2006 and a trip to another Champions League Final in 2007 (that loss still stings) made it a decent enough decade, but the Premier League form simply wasn’t good enough and that’s the barometer Liverpool fans generally use for success; as Shankly famously said “the league is our bread and butter”. This decade has followed in a similar vein, with a League Cup success in 2010 and a losing appearance in the FA Cup Final the same year, coupled with unacceptable Premier League results. Until now that is.

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