The most daunting aspect of the challenge that stands before Liverpool Football Club over the course of the next 10 months is that it appears identical to the challenge the players and coaches confronted a year ago, handled almost flawlessly — and still failed to overcome.
That’s how difficult it is for Liverpool — or anyone else in England’s Premier League — to catch two-time defending champion Manchester City. In the past two years, City recorded the two highest points totals in the league’s three-decade history. LFC lost a single game in the 2018-19 season, closed with nine consecutive victories that stretched from early March to season’s end, and still finished second.
The Reds rung up a points total that would have won the championship in every Premier League season ever contested save for the two most recent City triumphs. On the way to that second-place finish, they narrowed an advantage that had been 25 points in the 2017-18 season to a single point. How can Liverpool bridge that final, enormous gap?
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“I don’t think we need to do much different, if I’m honest,” left back Andy Robertson told Sporting News. “The season we had was as close to perfect as we could have gotten. But unfortunately, we had another team going as well at it. It was a two-horse race, and Man City definitely deserved it. It was two great teams going at it, and they pipped us, so fair play to them. But this season we’ll be back, and we hope to do one better than them.”
This is quite a conundrum for a team, the awareness one can play nearly to the limit of one’s potential and still be found wanting. It is not unprecedented, though, to conquer that obstacle.
The 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers lost once in 16 regular-season games, ripped off a winning streak that lasted 15 games, and still were skunked in a home playoff game one step short of the Super Bowl. The 2016-17 Washington Capitals won the NHL’s President’s Trophy with 118 regular-season points, their second consecutive season leading the league, but fell in the second round of the playoffs for the second straight year. Each of those teams, however, found some way to rebound from that crushing disappointment, and it didn’t necessarily require performing at the same level.
The 2005 Steelers squeezed into the playoffs in the final wildcard spot, then became the first NFL team to win three consecutive road playoff games and dominated Super Bowl XL. The Caps of 2017-18 recorded only 105 points but, at last, conquered their second-round jinx and claimed the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
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It’s a little different for Liverpool, because the profound disappointment of missing the Premier League title by a single point was offset by the magnificence of overcoming a 3-0 deficit against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League semifinals and then claiming the club’s sixth European Cup with a 2-0 victory in the final over Tottenham Hotspur at Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano.
Liverpool actually won the biggest trophy in club soccer while losing out on the title that, because it has been so elusive, means the most to the majority of its fan base.
“We want to keep making history for this football club and this team, and I’m very confident that we can do that,” captain Jordan Henderson said. “There are some fantastic teams around Europe and the Premier League, of course, and it’s very difficult. But we want to keep working, just keep focused on what we need to do, and keep learning. And if we do that, then we’ll show it.
“Like I’ve said before: Football changes quickly, all the time. You can only focus on what’s in front. You can’t change what’s happened in the past, good or bad. For us as a team, we just want to focus on the future. We’ll never forget what happened in Madrid, but we can use that in the right way.”
It has been somewhat surprising to see Liverpool respond to that triumph by making so few changes to its roster during the (too brief) offseason. Promising forward Harry Wilson was loaned to Bournemouth. Reserve left back Alberto Moreno and striker Daniel Sturridge were released. But the only players acquired have been teenagers unlikely to make an immediate impact.
Liverpool played nearly all last season without winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and midfielder Adam Lallana, and midfielder Naby Keita’s season was abbreviated by injuries, and so has come the assertion from manager Jurgen Klopp and others that seeing these players return to health is the equivalent of multiple big-ticket transfers.
The team still appears to lack the depth it enjoyed a year ago, unless prospects such as forward Rhiann Brewster and left back Yasser Larouci are able to make significant progress.
It seems impossible to lose as infrequently as Liverpool did last season and still not claim the league championship, but the Reds went through a stretch of six games between late January and early March in which it was held to one goal or none four times, all of which became draws. An extra goal in any one of those could have resulted in a championship. The team’s seven draws on the season contained only four LFC goals.
They finished with 16 more goals than any team in the league save one – Manchester City, which scored 95 times, six more than the Reds.
“We’re completely focused on Liverpool,” Klopp told Sporting News. “It would be great to be around Man City again, because that’s the only opportunity you have to pass them. Because it’s already clear they are the big favorite again, and they have a very good situation they showed last year. Especially after having 100 points in the season before, the greed they showed, the determination they showed, it was just impressive.
“I don’t think they would have had 98 points if we wouldn’t have been around, and we wouldn’t have had 97 points if Man City hadn’t been around. So we chased each other through the season, put ourselves and each other under pressure and that led to that.
“But all the guys, all the teams will start again. There is no duel with City and Liverpool and all the rest watching us. That is not how the Premier League is.”
