Pivotal point in Liverpool’s quest
Liverpool’s pursuit of their first league title since 1990 faces a huge hurdle at Old Trafford tomorrow. Oliver Kay reports.
In the summer of 1988, long before he was able to boast of knocking Liverpool ‘‘off their f...ing perch’’, Alex Ferguson (no knighthood in those days) outlined his plans for the year ahead.
‘‘This isn’t a job to me,’’ he told reporters. ‘‘It’s a mission. I’m deadly serious about it. Some people would reckon too serious. We will get there, believe me. And when it happens, life will change for Liverpool and everyone else – dramatically.’’
Well, it did, although even Ferguson would not have imagined when Liverpool were crowned champions of England for the 18th time in 1990 that they would still be waiting almost three decades later for their 19th. Neither would he would have imagined in April, 1992, when a harrowing 2-0 defeat at a gleeful Anfield made it 25 years since Manchester United’s previous league title (their seventh), that they would be on 20 titles to Liverpool’s 18 by the time that he left the club. Mind you, few would have imagined in 2013, when Ferguson retired, that United would go the next six years without mounting a credible title challenge.
It often feels as though these two rivals are incapable of thriving simultaneously. During the Merseyside club’s 1970s and 1980s pomp, it was as much as United could do to beat them to win the odd cup and to try to derail the Liverpool bandwagon whenever it came to town.
Those roles were reversed during the 1990s and 2000s when Liverpool were reduced to the same unsatisfying existence. The past six seasons have been unexpectedly traumatic for United but, even in the beginnings of a resurgence under caretaker boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the overwhelming ambition at Old Trafford tomorrow will be to do everything to try to keep Liverpool off their, ahem, perch.
It is impossible to avoid the rancour and the resentment that has built up between English football’s two most successful clubs, but there was not much of it to be found yesterday.
Solskjaer echoed the thoughts of every United supporter when he suggested that he would like to see Tottenham Hotspur beat Liverpool and Manchester City to the Premier League, but there was nothing caustic from him.
Jurgen Klopp spent much of his press conference showering United with compliments and saying that it was ‘‘clear’’ that Solskjaer should and would get the job permanently.
Away from the television cameras, Klopp even went on to express his admiration for Ferguson for the job he did in making United the dominant force in English football. He began by recalling their first meeting at a European coaches forum at Uefa HQ in Nyon, Switzerland, when Ferguson beckoned him over to a spare seat at the breakfast table and held court for half an hour – ‘‘only I had no clue what we were talking about because of the Scottish thing. I tried to be really, really friendly. Step by step, I got it’’.
‘‘He is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in world football,’’ Klopp said of the former Manchester United manager. ‘‘You can see that with all the things he achieved, where he started, where he came from and what he did with the club, all that stuff. It’s incredible.
‘‘I always admired him. From a distance, it’s easy. I’m pretty sure when he was in charge he didn’t want us [Liverpool] to be successful. Maybe he doesn’t want that, but the opinion is probably not that strange anymore because he said already a couple of times, I heard, that he likes what we are doing here. I respect him a lot. Obviously he thinks not completely blind as a manager, so that’s good.’’
Indeed, Ferguson said in October 2015, when Klopp arrived at Anfield, that he was ‘‘worried’’ that the former Borussia Dortmund coach was ‘‘going to make a difference at that club with his personality, drive and knowledge. Things are looking up there’’. He repeated the message a year later, saying how Klopp had ‘‘re-energised’’ Liverpool and restored their identity. That admiration can only have increased over the past couple of years, in which their improvement has taken them to a Champions League final and now to the thick of what looks a fiercely competitive title race.
The challenge for Klopp is to do what Ferguson did – not just to re-energise a great club but to end what has seemed like an interminable wait and to restore Liverpool to what their supporters feel is their rightful place.
If that felt like an odyssey for Ferguson in the spring of 1993, when United cast aside the challenges of Aston Villa and Norwich City to become the inaugural champions of the new Premier League era, it can hardly feel any less daunting for Klopp, whose Liverpool team find themselves up against a Manchester City team who broke so many records during last season’s title success (and look capable of doing so again) and a Tottenham side who cannot be underestimated.
Tomorrow feels huge for Liverpool. The momentum that would be gained from victory over United, restoring a threepoint lead at the top, is obvious. So too the momentum that would be lost in defeat, even if Klopp pointed out that the worst-case scenario this weekend is hardly apocalyptic. ‘‘If we would see it like a lot of people see it – that it is the game – then that’s too much pressure on everybody,’’ the Liverpool manager said.
‘‘You cannot do it like that. If we lose the game – and I don’t think about losing the game – then we’re still level with Manchester City on points and Tottenham [who play Burnley today] are probably only two points behind us. That’s how it is. That’s the worst thing that can happen.’’
In cold, logical terms, this is true, but Klopp, as much as Ferguson, is a great believer in the power of momentum and positive energy. He knows what is at stake at Old Trafford tomorrow and over the weeks ahead.
He is on a mission. He is deadly serious about it. He wants Liverpool back on that perch. There would be no better place to underline their credentials – and no worse place to taste defeat.
THE TIMES, LONDON