LIVERPOOL WIN TITLE AFTER 30 YEARS
Liverpool 30-year title drought over as City beaten in thriller at Chelsea
LIVERPOOL were crowned Premier League champions for the first time last night when rivals Manchester City were beaten 2-1 at Chelsea.
Jurgen Klopp and his players are uncatchable now and have ended 30 years of title hurt at Anfield.
THE fitting thing is that when Liverpool came to take their final step towards a Premier League title that has felt theirs for so long, they did it with some football typical of their season.
After the disappointment of a stale, unrecognisable draw at Everton at the weekend, Jurgen Klopp’s team were hungry for improvement against Crystal Palace. Hungry for the ball, hungry for goals, hungry for the work and the pain that makes them stand out.
It hurts to be a Liverpool player. It is physically demanding work. As Adam Lallana told the German journalist Raphael Honigstein for his Klopp biography: ‘You enjoy feeling that pain because everybody else is feeling it. You want to keep going for your mate. He’s hurting and you’re hurting but it’s all right. The manager celebrates tackles like goals sometimes. Because he knows it hurts.’
By full-time on Wednesday, the discomfort belonged to Palace. Despite the game being wrapped up by Liverpool’s third goal early in the second half, there had been no let-up. The game finished without Roy Hodgson’s team having managed a touch of the ball in their opponent’s penalty area.
This has been the trademark of Liverpool’s magnificent season. After the disappointment of last year’s second place, Klopp’s players have trampled over everybody this time. They may have finally been given the title by Manchester City’s failure to win last night but that is not important. This triumph has been claimed on the back of 28 Liverpool victories, two draws and just one defeat.
It is worth thinking about that for a moment and drawing some quick comparisons. The previous eight titles won by Liverpool — stretching from 1990 back to 1978 — were claimed with much more modest figures. In 1978-79, Liverpool won 30 of their 42 games. More often, the figure in the W column was 24, 25 or 26. This team, we say once again, have already won 28 times and there are still seven games to go of what is a shorter modern season.
So the new Liverpool’s place in history is assured. Klopp arrived in England in 2015 and said he would impose his high-pressure, hard-running style of football on the Premier League. The German has been true to his word.
The challenge now is to keep doing it and that may yet prove to be the hard bit. Winning a league title is one thing, defending it is quite another. Klopp has said already this year that the days of dominance the like of which Manchester United enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson are gone and will not return. The field is too competitive these days, he said.
Klopp does not mean that, though. Retaining this title is more important than anything next season. Good teams win titles once. Great teams take a hold of something and do not let go.
It will be a huge ask of Klopp and his players to win the Premier League next year. As strange as it sounds, they may not even start as favourites.
City’s squad remains deeper. They may not have European football to distract them either. On Monday against Burnley at the Etihad, Sergio Aguero, Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez went off and when they did Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane and Kevin De Bruyne came on. Pep Guardiola has frightening depths of talent to call on as he looks to unseat Liverpool.
Klopp, meanwhile, knows there will be obstacles. He will be confident he can prevent the mental fatigue so often seen in teams that have just climbed a mountain but he can do nothing about the hole left in his club’s finances by the coronavirus outbreak or the fact
Mo Salah and Sadio Mane will be at the African Cup of Nations next year. The impact of their absence will be keenly felt. Both players illustrated against Palace that they are irreplaceable. Klopp has bought the talented Takumi Minamino but withdrew from the tussle with Chelsea for Timo Werner, once the impact of the pandemic became clear. Normally it is prudent to strengthen when you are strong. It is a maxim that has served City well in recent years and Ferguson swore by it at Old Trafford. But for Liverpool it will not be easy. Their decision — soon reversed — to furlough staff when the season paused in the spring has left a mark. How can Klopp be given money to spend only weeks after the club claimed it needed Government help to pay basic staff salaries? So Klopp is entering uncharted waters. Trying to move a team forward to an even more exalted state at the end of a near perfect season is one thing. Trying to do it in these unprecedented social and political times is quite another.
Ultimately, it may come down to the 53-year-old’s force of personality and that is not as trite a statement as it appears. For all the supreme gifts of Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho and Salah, Klopp remains Liverpool’s greatest asset. Take him away and what do you have? Memories, probably.
Klopp has written his name across every square foot of Anfield. He has lodged fragments of his infectious, irresistible personality deep inside everybody he has met at the club, just as he did at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund.
Shortly after he arrived on Merseyside, he lined up the 80 staff at Melwood in front of the players in the dining hall. He already knew all their names and explained to everyone that they had a mutual responsibility to each other.
This sense of common purpose has long underpinned Klopp’s work as a manager. His methods are not a secret, they are merely hard to copy.
As the Premier League champions of 2020 move towards a title defence that will begin very soon, the innate genius of their charismatic coach will be more important than ever.