Why It Went Wrong for Liverpool and What Hope is There?

Not too long ago, Liverpool were a side that began every season with hopes of winning the Premiership title. Now they seem to look upon fourth place with similar hope, but unfortunately also similar are the bleak odds of them achieving it. The club has experienced a remarkable fall from grace and face a tough battle to return to challenging for the top 4, let alone hoping to win the league.
The story of how this happened is an interesting one, and one hopes that with Fenway Sports Group (FSG) in charge they can look to become a great team once again.
First we’ll have a look at Liverpool’s past league finishes, I will show the league finishes since the 2008/09 season, but remember that before then they had only finished outside the top 4 three times since 1994/95. So they were highly consistent finishers in the top 4. It seems a distant memory now but it wasn’t that long ago that before the season started you could guarantee that Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool would occupy the Champions League spots. So, the recent finishes:

• 2008/09 – 2^nd
• 2009/10 – 7^th
• 2010/11 – 6^th
• 2011/12 – 8^th

In the past three seasons it can be safely concluded that Liverpool are displaying the form of a mid-table side. Yet before that began they had challenged for the title, and came very close to winning it. Clearly there must have been some kind of disaster or catastrophe to make this happen, but there seem to have only been subtle changes that caused this to happen. Could it be attributed to the sale of one player?

The fall of Liverpool seems to have coincided with the rise of City. Bought in 2008 by wealthy businessmen from the Middle East, it was clear to all that City would soon be challenging for trophies. The question that was raised was; who will suffer in the top 4? The Champions League spots were still claimed by the group of four clubs and Manchester City would surely be ousting one of those. Instantly I feared for Liverpool of all the teams. Manchester United were never in danger, Chelsea were clearly highly ambitious and were possibly the only team that could match City for financial power and Arsenal looked very stable and consistent. It was an anxious time; nobody really knew what would happen with City.
However this seems to be a judgement too easily made. Sure, City were able to pass Liverpool on their climb to the top of the table, but recently Spurs, Newcastle and even Everton have been finishing higher than the reds. Surely if Liverpool’s fall was purely down to City, they would be finishing 5^th every season just behind the new top 4.

There’s no ignoring the recent changes in management at Anfield, in the time period that I have highlighted the club has had 4 managers; Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish and Brendan Rodgers. Such a disruptive event as a change in management has the potential to severely affect every team, three of these changes could be cataclysmic. Not just for the changes in style and formation; each manager brings with himself an idea of the players he wants to bring to the team. Bring a different manager in and they might not want that player, resulting in a huge waste of money. Paul Konchesky, Alberto Aquilani, Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll are all examples of players that were bought by one manager but not fancied by the next. This is a worryingly long list of players for such a short period of time. Clearly a lot of money has been wasted at Anfield, probably enough for the past few transfer windows to be classed as failures; you could definitely say that the team has gone backwards since that 2^nd placed finish.
Again, there is a ‘however’ to this story. Liverpool’s big drop from 2^nd to 7^th occurred while Rafa Benitez was still in charge. So how can a club go from challenging to the title to finishing in mid-table? For some people, Liverpool were the team they predicted to win the title in the 2009/10 season.

Following the clubs 2^nd placed finish, Xabi Alonso transferred to Real Madrid for £30,000,000. In a team that contained a red hot Fernando Torres up front and a flying Steven Gerrard playing behind him, Alonso was the team that made him tick. His long range passes were a trademark, but he was the one who played the forward passes for the team; his midfield partner Javier Mascherano does not have passing in his repertoire. With Alonso gone, his place was at first taken by Lucas while replacement Aquilani was injured. Lucas and Mascherano combined didn’t seem to have a creative bone in their body and the spark and creativity was gone in the midfield. Everything seemed to collapse from there. Aquilani eventually made it into the team but couldn’t have much of an effect, the club finished an embarrassing 7^th place and Rafa was sacked. Three years on the club have still failed to recover.

With the club possibly having 6 teams ahead of them in terms of ability, is there any chance of them returning to the Champions League positions and building on a title challenge from there? Well the name still has some impact in world football, emphasised by the club being able to bring in Luis Suarez. They have exciting players like Raheem Sterling and Suso breaking into the team but the Rodgers philosophy remains the deciding factor. If he can integrate his style into the team, and FSG can stay patient while he tries to do so, then there is hope that they can begin to move from mid table mediocrity.
It seems that the sale of Alonso may have caused all this to snowball into a major disaster and a dark point in the clubs history. The sale resulted in a poor season, the poor season resulted in a change in manager, the failure of that manager led to a series of new managers. The rise of Manchester City doesn’t seem to have caused their decline, but it certainly means that it will be harder to return to where they once were. It will be a long battle to reverse a horrible three years that began with so much promise. A rebuilding process is under way; Liverpool cannot be rebuilt in a day.
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