End of Season Review! Liverpool Football Club!
Wow! What a stressful and exhilarating end to the season and that was all just for a Top Four position! It is also strange to think with all our defensive issues we had this season we finished the season with three clean sheets! I think we can all agree even though we did not win a trophy this season we can count this as a successful season. But why was it a success? Was it just because we made the Top Four? Or was it more than that!? Lets explore that shall we! For the purposes of this review as we did finish with a successful season I have chosen to look at the positives rather than the negatives!
Making Top Four and Securing Champions League Football
Even though at one stage we were on top of the table and playing some great football Top Four was the realistic goal and we achieved that. That is a huge deal not only to have those glorious European Anfield nights but it is difficult to put into words how much more pull we have in the transfer window. We can bring in proven match winners. Champions League football coupled with having an exciting manager like Jurgen Klopp there is almost no target that is unrealistic. We are an elite club and we have not been acting like one lately so to be among the elite again does feel really good. The prospects of keeping a player like Phillipe Coutinho is now a lot more positive as well with Champions League football on the horizon! While we made it very difficult at times and got reprieves from other teams below us we secured Top Four but there are other aspects that made our season a success!
Learning to Win Ugly!
Sometimes especially in the Premier League being able to win ugly is more important then blowing teams away! The teams in the Premier League are too good to expect to walk over teams. What I mean by winning ugly is doing anything to get over the line even if that sometimes does not mean winning or playing well! Just getting the result that is needed! Just grinding out clean sheets is so important if things are not going the teams way in the final third. I think this was our downfall in the earlier and mid part of the season. There were not too many games that we did not play well in to be honest but when we did play badly we dropped points to teams like Swansea and Crystal Palace. We needed to learn quickly how to win ugly if we wanted to get over the line and finish in the Top 4! And then we did! Baring the Bournemouth and Crystal Palace games a run that followed was literred with ugly wins! Starting with our win against Burnley a 2-1 success at home on March 12 what followed was ground out wins against Stoke City, West Brom, Watford and even though we won 3-0 on the final day the first half was very tough for us and we got the victory! While we have not solved the issue of winning ugly just yet as the loss to Crystal Palace and the draws against Bournemouth and Southampton show I think we are starting to learn this resilience which is massive progress!
Making the Big teams look small!
While we struggled against teams in the bottom half the Top 7 Liverpool were unbeaten against! That is home and away games against Champions Chelsea, Spurs, Man City, Arsenal, Man United and Everton. Not one loss. 7 wins and 7 draws. That is an unprecedented record that should yield the title. But we all know what happened there! There is not much more to say about this record other than it shows that this group of players have no issue getting up for the big occasion! It also shows we thrive against teams who do not mind attacking and those who do not sit back and defend the whole game. Well besides for the Man United fixture at Anfield. They were there for only one result ;). If we carry on this record next season with Champions League football as a distraction and sort out our jips against the teams lower than that then we have a very good chance of mounting a real title challenge for next season! We can even get really far in the Champions League!
We did it as a team!
While the heartbreaking season of 2013/14 did yield Champions League football I feel this season we did it more as team then we did then. Then we counted on players like Suarez, Sturridge, Gerrard and Sterling to lift us to victories and while they were more impressive we were extremely reliant on these players. This season it was much more of team effort. Even though critics labelled us as a one man team of Manes I think the statistics show otherwise. Especially in the later parts of the season when the attack was not as flowing the players stuck together as team and got us over the line. We had eight players get 5 goals or more and 5 players get more than 5 assists. Not part of that list is Jordan Henderson. He had completed the most passes of any player in the league before he went down with an injury. Even though we had goalkeeper troubles in the early stages of the season with Mignolet and Karius putting about error ridden performances when Mignolet was restored to the team for the second time he looked the part and helped us grind out the wins near the end of the season. Our defence also stood up and become counted in more games than they did not down the stretch. When we had a crisis in the midfield with Lallana, Mane and Henderson being injured Can stepped up and bossed the midfield down the stretch never mind his wonder goal against Watford. While a lot of people will say the likes of Mane, Coutinho, Firmino and Lallana, who were absolutely fantastic, got us over the line it was the team as a whole! Special mention also needs to go to James Milner who has barely ever played left back in this career looked the part even though he did struggle with crossing at times!
We are on the Rise with Jurgen Klopp!
What a character of a manager we have! Always ready to joke and the passion he shows is unprecedented! He rarely complains and is a joy to watch in press conferences. And while we all love him for that the fact that he has taken a team that frankly looked boring and lacked direction into a fast paced exciting team that can beat almost anyone on their day! Even though his time in the Premier League has not been without its low blows he has learnt so much as a Premier League manager and I feel is ready to take us into the next chapter of Liverpool Football Club. He has started to learn how to set up teams to win ugly and has slowly started to learn how important defence is when playing in the Premier League. He also had an extremely limited squad and often had benches that just did not have a game changing element to it and to achieve our goals with that is extremely impressive! Jurgen has taken us back into the Champions League and I can only see more progress from here! Jurgen has also transformed players who were average before he took over! Lovren was a hot mess and now is a much more solid Defender, Lallana looked bang on average and now he is a genuine match winner and Jurgen has seemingly turned Mignolet into a serious goalkeeper! Here is too many more successful years with Jurgen as our manager! JURGEN KLOPP WE WILL WIN THE F***** LOT!
Some really successful signings!
When Liverpool signed Saido Mane and Gigi Wijnaldum for a combined total of just under Sixty Million Pounds I was rather skeptical. While they were impressive last season the players inconsistencies were a genuine worry! They both proved me and all the critics wrong. Mane became our player of the year and if he did not get injured and go to the African Cup of Nations he was a genuine contender for player of the season full stop! While Wijnaldum played in a different potion he did for Newcastle he quickly adapted into the holding midfield role that Jurgen Klopp wanted him to play in and became a mainstay in the midfield and produced some really solid performances! He also scored the goal that effectively sealed Champions League Football! More than worth the 25 million price tag! ;) Joel Matip who we signed for free from Schalke was also mostly impressive he really did turn out to be a bargain and could definitely start next season at the heart of the defence!
Anfield got bigger and louder!
While it is pretty obvious Anfield would become louder with the capacity of the stadium increased I feel the crowd was much more willing to back the players when things looked tough this season. The last two seasons the crowd would be silent when we were losing games which does not help the players at all! With the help of Jurgen Klopp the crowd were always up for the games even when games looked dire. It definitely helped the players down the stretch! Anfield's capacity increase also would have been a massive boost to revenue for a club that does seem to be a little behind in financial clout to the two teams from Manchester and Chelsea. With the boost in revenue I am sure Jurgen's Transfer Kitty next season is much fatter than it has ever been!
Well that seems like it!
I think it would take a real nit picker to deem our season a failure. Liverpool achieved Top Four and everything that goes along with it! With a bigger stadium, a top manager, a promising team and what seems to be a big transfer budget there is no reason why we should not keep progressing and hopefully one day we can get that elusive title! Stay tuned for a piece on what lies ahead for us next season and what we need to do to achieve our goals next season!
