Premier League: Liverpool, the Withering Giant?

Once upon a time Liverpool was the most successful club in England, feared by Europe’s elite and able to get its hands on any player it wanted.

As the 2016/17 Premier League season draws to a close Liverpool are in the running for a top four spot, a real achievement for a club that has not won a Premier League title for more than two decades. Liverpool is now being closely linked to Burnley centre-back Michael Keane and several other players from clubs in the bottom half of the league.

But Liverpool are in serious danger of letting it all slip away.

While Manchester United is linked to Antoine Griezmann, Chelsea to Neymar and Manchester City to Kingsley Coman, Liverpool is battling it out for players who are new to the best league in the world. This isn’t a new thing for Liverpool, which two seasons ago raided Southampton for four players at a cost of just over £45 million. That was Southampton’s second season back in the Premier League. In the same season Manchester United signed Angel Di Maria, Ander Herrera and Radamel Falcao.

Transfers are one part of the problem. Another is the board not working hard enough to bring top talent to the club, making a manager’s job tougher than it already is. Alexis Sanchez is the perfect example. Liverpool had the ball in their court with the Chilean until Arsenal came along and offered £30k more a week. Sanchez has since scored 47 goals for Arsenal while Liverpool’s current forwards (Firmino, Sturridge and Origi) have scored a total of 37.

There is also the issue of Liverpool fans and their unrealistic expectations. As a Liverpool fan, I look around on a match day and if we are up 2-0 the fans are adamant that it must become a 4-0 thrashing.

But when we push for those extra goals and instead concede two late goals, who takes the blame? Klopp and his formula.

Liverpool beat Burnley 2-1 in an extremely hard-fought game with Liverpool finishing the game on the back foot and scraping over the finish line. The first thing you heard from fans was “why didn’t we slaughter Burnley?”. Remember when we tried that earlier in the season and lost 2-0?

The fans expect too much from a team that has only one world-class player in the squad – Philippe Countinho – who turns up 15 games a season.

The fans need to realise that Leicester’s run to the title last season was a once-in-a lifetime performance and that getting to the pinnacle is actually a gradual process. Once they accept that fighting for the top four right now is a great achievement, the club will begin to head in the right direction. Unfortunately the success-starved Liverpool fans are desperate to challenge for the title every season.

The biggest problem is the lack of European football, which is tied to all of the above issues, from transfers to fan attitudes. Without European football, especially Champions League football, Liverpool will slowly wither and become the next Newcastle United. Dare I say, a “Wenger-style” mentality should be adopted: at least for the next few seasons a top four finish will be as good as winning a trophy.

by Nubaid Haroon Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCtMg-fWm7awR41vM1GhVOkA  Twitter: twitter.com/rambofyi

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