Stage set for Liverpool to close deal
It is impossible to overstate the stranglehold Liverpool held
LIKE expectant children on Christmas Eve, they were made to wait. Thirty years ago – April 28, 1990, to be precise – Liverpool won their last league title. Word had filtered through that Aston Villa had drawn with Norwich City and Kenny Dalglish and his players set off on an Anfield lap of honour that was to prove premature. As it was, they would only have to wait a few minutes longer before confirmation came that Liverpool were, indeed, champions of England for the 18th time.
“We were told it had finished,” said Dalglish, following a 2-1 win over QPR. “We have had some bad information in the past and that just continued today. It’s a better feeling than last year anyway.”
The previous season Arsenal had plucked the title from Dalglish’s grasp, scoring a late second to win on goal difference, but this was the record being put right. The league title was returning to its proper home, the place where it had resided for 10 seasons out of the previous 15.
It is impossible to overstate the stranglehold Liverpool held over the English First Division at that time. It spoke to the ruthlessness of the club as a winning machine. Celebrations were modest. Ray Houghton, one of the squad that April day, says that he would be told to put his medal away soon after receiving it so that he quickly became attuned to the prospect of doing it all over again rather than reflecting on what had just been.
There was nothing obvious to suggest this was to be Liverpool’s last title of the era. They had stuck nine, six and five past Crystal Palace, Coventry City and Chelsea in a season peppered with threes and fours against other hapless opponents.
In John Barnes, they possessed the reigning player of the year, still retained the core of the side that had won the title and had bolstered their ranks for the following season with the permanent signing of Ronny Rosenthal, who had scored seven goals during the run-in whilst on loan from Standard Liege, and David Speedie from Coventry.
There was certainly no panic even if, for all their dominance against some of the cannon fodder, there had been signs of a loosening grip.
Writing specifically about the club’s impending return to European competition following the five-year ban imposed on English clubs after the Heysel Stadium tragedy, Daily Mirror journalist Frank McGhee observed after the QPR victory: “The evidence of any single match is obviously flawed but on this unconvincing form Liverpool, as they have so often this season, struggled to produce the form and the successes of the previous decade.”
He may have been talking about the European Cup but McGhee’s words were to prove prescient. While great empires always come to an end, few would have predicted the speed with which Liverpool’s fell or the hiatus that was to follow.
By February 1991, Dalglish had gone, weighed down by the trauma of the Hillsborough disaster two years earlier, a period during which he attended four funerals in one day.
In his autobiography, he wrote: “Although I didn’t realise it at the time, Hillsborough was the most important factor in my decision to leave Liverpool in 1991. In truth, I had wanted to leave Anfield in 1990, a year before I eventually resigned. In the 22 months between Hillsborough and my resignation, the strain kept growing until I finally snapped.
“By Christmas my body was covered in big blotches. A few even appeared on my face. I saw a doctor nearly every day for injections. As a player,
I was pretty much teetotal because I was dedicated to my profession but in the period before I resigned I used to drink wine so I could be more sociable with my family.”
The psychological scars remained for the club, too, but while it feels a touch uncouth to make the comparison, partial justice for the supporters who died that day has been accompanied by a return to former glories on the pitch.
Liverpool’s wait for the title this time around has been a good deal lengthier than it was on that day in 1990. Having been on the brink of sealing the title in March, three months have now elapsed; should they pick up where they left off – notwithstanding the 3-0 humbling at the hands of Watford as February came to a close – against Everton this afternoon they will stand one win away from putting right what feels like an anomaly to anyone who witnessed their dominance in the 70s and 80s.
What happened? A lack of the consistency for which they had been previously renowned, the psychological impact of Hillsborough, and the weight
of history all combined at different times to scupper title challenges.
More than anything, their problems were exposed by illjudged purchases, something that has been put right by Fenway Sports Management whose faith in sporting director Michael Edwards, appointed four years ago, has been rewarded in spades. By the time they chucked away the title in 2015 under Brendan Rodgers, they had spent £770m on 190 players. In the five years since they dished out almost £500m on 29 players, albeit for a net spend of a little more than £90m.
Dalglish’s waygoing was followed by poor managerial appointments during the advent of the Premier League, a general loosening of Boot Room values as characterised by the Spice Boys era, high spending on the wrong players, and the rise of the super clubs backed by oil and sovereign wealth.
Some of these other problems were solved with a single appointment in Jurgen Klopp who has reinstated the ethos and playing style for which Liverpool became feared across the continent.
The 19th title is not in the bag but it may as well be. Yet, in this most curious of campaigns it feels as if we are straddling two seasons. UEFA’s decision to extend the transfer window until October accentuates that feeling but also throws into sharp relief the requirement to do good business at a time when there may be distractions elsewhere. Chelsea have already demonstrated that it is a buyer’s market, taking advantage of clauses in the contracts of Hakim Ziyech at Ajax and RB Leipzig’s Timo Werner, who gives the Londoners the kind of talismanic, free-scoring threat they have lacked since Didier Drogba.
Manchester United intend to be one of the heavier spenders, too, with Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho and Aston Villa playmaker Jack Grealish at the top of their list of targets.
Manchester City, well short by their standards, will enter next season with renewed confidence with Aymeric Laporte back to fitness and Eric Garcia providing hope that they may have found a replacement for Vincent Kompany, whom they have missed badly. Guardiola might yet take advantage of market uncertainty due to the pandemic with City one of the few who might be able to pay the king’s ransom Napoli want for their rugged centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly.
Liverpool have indicated that they intend to stand pat in the transfer market. After all, with City their nearest challengers 22 points behind, the rest have some catching up to do but in the Premier League – as those at Anfield can certainly attest to – it would be unwise to remain stationary for too long.