It was a solid performance by Liverpool last season, when they won the UEFA Champions League in a thoroughly riveting encounter against European giants, Tottenham Hotspur. It’s an achievement not to be scoffed at.
Alas, the Scousers fell short of their ambition to win their first English Premier League title, triggering a barrage of mirth among rival fans.
Quite naturally, the Anfield faithfuls pointed out that they accumulated 97 points, the most points scored by a team without winning the title. Of course they conveniently ignore the fact that the team also lost a 10-point lead they held in December 2018. Allowing Madchester City to overturn the deficit to clinch the title was a pretty massive cock-up, to put it mildly.
Still, they have carried the momentum and started the new season strong. Jurgen Klopp seems to have assembled a pretty decent squad. They play some good football and they have shown that they can mix it with the best of what the league, as well as the post-Brexit Europe, has to offer.
It’s still early days, but they should be around the sharper end of the league table come May 2020.
Or will they?
Well, if Salah, Mane, van Desk and Roberto Flamingo stay injury-free, the Scousers could be serious contenders. Jurgen Norbert Klopp will also need his goalkeepers to cease all forms of circus clown act on the pitch with immediate effect, if he were to restore Liddypool’s former glory.
There is a slight concern stemming from the lack of significant summer purchases to add to the squad, and not enough players graduating from their youth academy (their own, not Southampton’s). Still, the aforementioned four stalwarts form a solid spine of the team, so J. Klompen can operate from a decent baseline.
Unless the squad gets dismantled starting the next January transfer window, that is.
We know that Real Madrid is keeping an eye on Mo Salah, and being Madrid, they don’t mind having Virgin van Dijk on their roster as well. After all, they need to replace Sergio Ramos at some point.
Mane is probably a Barcelona type of player, and he will fit right in. Rumour has it that the Catalan club is also keen on van Dijk, the newly crowned UEFA Player of the Year. Barca do have a bit of a fetish when it comes to top Dutch players in the past. Think Johan Cruyff, Johannes Neeskens, Patrick Kluivert, Ronald Koeman, Edgar Davids, Marc Overmoon, the de Beer brothers, and Giovanni van Bronchitis.
Motivation is a Must
So Jurgen will have to work hard to keep everyone motivated, and convince them that staying at Anfield is the best career option. The best motivation and persuasion tool is success, so it’s imperative that Lagerpool win the title this season, especially this year being their year and everything.
If any of the aforementioned star players decide to seek pastures anew or the dressing room gets raided by Treasure Hunters (otherwise known as Properly Rich European Clubs) in the next two transfer windows, then Liverpool could collapse faster than they can say ‘Raheem Sterling’.
The scenario may not seem possible for most Liverpool fans, but it’s still something perfectly plausible. At least that’s what folks in both the red and blue halves of Manchester must be hoping.