Phillip Buckley
Climbing a mountain is hard in one go. Teams rarely spring from nowhere to capture a domestic crown. Mostly their approach is well marked, tracked and flagged to opponents. But when they are ready to pounce, little can stop them and a new order, even if only briefly, is established. Second place has long proven to be a good pointer towards teams poised to go one better. Manchester United finished second in the 1991/92 season before jumping up to claim the title a year later. Chelsea trailed in second in 2003/04, waiting for Jose Mourinho to propel them up to first in the next campaign. Two clubs did finish third and then went on to pick up the title (Arsenal in 1996/97 and Manchester City in 2010/11), but on both occasions they were level with the team placed second on points, separated only on goal difference, meaning a solid base camp had been established. One club though have had difficulty using second spot as a base camp for the jump to first in the Premier League era – Liverpool.
In the 2001/02 campaign, Gerard Houllier led the Reds to second behind champions Arsenal. It was a solid showing and came hot on the heels of the 2000/01 season which had seen a remarkable UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup treble claimed. In the summer of 2002, few believed that predicting in 12 months’ time Liverpool would be champions represented sticking their neck out. Again in 2008/09, Liverpool finished second. Under Rafael Benitez the Reds had led the table for large parts of the campaign and heading into Christmas seemed poised to take the title. In the end just four points separated the Spaniard’s well-oiled machine from champions Manchester United and a 4-1 drubbing of the Red Devils at Old Trafford in March, Fernando Torres tormenting a laboured defence, seemed to herald a changing of the guard. And so, in the summer of 2009, Liverpool were again at base camp, readying a title challenge.
But neither 2002 nor 2009 proved to be the summer of completing the title team jigsaw at Anfield. Where Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City had all succeeded in using a firm, solid base camp to push on to the summit, Liverpool stripped away their foundations and crumbled following two summers of misjudged purchases. On both occasions their decline was spectacular and finishing second proved to be their summit, the peak, the moment they were at their best. Houllier’s team dropped from second to fifth, shedding 16 points and not even securing a Champions League blanket to keep them warm for the following campaign. Benitez’s men dipped even further than Houllier’s, recording 23 fewer points than the season before, a finish of just seventh. The Spaniard could point to a tricky ownership situation as a mitigating circumstance, but such a crumble from second spot the year before was so alarming it emboldened a hostile board, which had been disarmed by his standing amongst the fans, to sack him.
Now Liverpool find themselves at base camp once again, having finished second last season. But whether the club can avoid their recent disastrous history after a runners-up finish is up in the air, with a large scale signing spree having been embarked upon which fans will hope proves to be more successful than those launched by Houllier and Benitez. Houllier went into his bolstering spree after a World Cup, just as current Reds boss Brendan Rodgers has. The Frenchman’s summer of 2002 is best remembered for the capture of two stars of the Senegal World Cup side that reached the quarter-finals in South Korea/Japan. El Hadji Diouf and Salif Diao are names Anfield has collectively tried to forget; each costing a reasonable sum and flopping so badly as to burst the bubble of what had been a positive mood around the club. Benitez matched Houllier in the flop department in 2009, signing the notoriously injury prone Alberto Aquilani from Roma, something which may not have derailed the club’s progress had he not been bought to replace the side’s metronome Xabi Alonso.
While Rodgers is buying after a World Cup, just as Houllier (World Cups tend to inflate price tags and speed business up before and after), he perhaps has more in common with Benitez in that a key player needs replacing, a man whose presence will be missed by the Reds and welcomed by their enemies.
Luis Suarez powered Liverpool’s Premier League push last season, with the 31-goal haul next to his name on paper doing scant justice to his actual influence on the pitch. Beyond goals, Suarez oozed class, assists, flair, hunger and leadership. By the end of the season he appeared to have only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi ahead of him in world football. However, rather than building a side around the controversial Uruguayan, making him Liverpool’s Eric Cantona, the spark for a decade of dominance, the Reds have sold up. Replacing Suarez is an impossibility for Liverpool, but the £75m received from Barcelona, allied with money flowing in from a Champions League return, would have surely allowed three signings in the £40m range. Instead Rodgers has gone for quantity, stocking up his squad by signing Dejan Lovren (£20m), Emre Can (£9.5m), Adam Lallana (£25m), Lazar Markovic (£20m), Rickie Lambert (£4.5m), Javier Manquillo (loan) and Divock Origi (£10m), the latter not due to arrive until 2015 upon the expiration of a loan agreement with Lille.
Liverpool have followed a path similar to that trod by Tottenham Hotspur last summer upon the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. Spurs decided it was better to shop in the mid-range market than go for premium signings, hoping a scattergun approach would succeed more often than it failed and the Welshman would be replaced by numbers. 12 months on and Vlad Chiriches, Paulinho, Roberto Soldado, Erik Lamela, Etienne Capoue, Nacer Chadli and Christian Eriksen have failed to spark a top four spot. In fact Spurs even regressed last season, finishing a place lower and with three points fewer in the Premier League. Will Liverpool’s signings be cut from a different cloth?
Rodgers’ record in the transfer market has been skewed by the runaway success enjoyed by Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho, with the Northern Irishman having spent fees and wages on questionable purchases. Fabio Borini (£10.5m), Oussama Assaidi (£3m), Nuri Sahin (loan), Luis Alberto (£7m), Iago Aspas (£7m), Aly Cissokho (loan) and Tiago Ilori (£7m) have sunk and not swum at Anfield. Joe Allen (£15m) and Mamadou Sakho (£19m) look overpriced, although the Welshman’s capture was an understandable move from Rodgers, as he sought to put a familiar face in an unfamiliar dressing room; think Wenger’s Gilles Grimandi and Houllier’s Jean-Michel Ferri.
The former Swansea manager still has to sign a striker, which he will undoubtedly do following the collapse of Loic Remy’s move to Liverpool, but again it is difficult to imagine a top-draw £40m plus capture. In a season where Louis van Gaal has taken charge of Manchester United, with a feel-good factor sweeping around Old Trafford, Manuel Pellegrini has continued shaping a title-winning Manchester City squad, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal have money coming on stream which has already seen Alexis Sanchez signed and Chelsea head into a second campaign with Jose Mourinho at the helm, Diego Costa bought to banish their goalscoring woes, it has never been more essential for a Liverpool manager to succeed where others have failed. Five won’t go into four; someone will be disappointed.
The Reds’ base camp of second place has been rendered shaky by the sale of Suarez and rivals are nipping at Liverpool’s heels. And as Manchester United showed last season, slipping hard and fast is all too possible in an increasingly competitive Premier League. As Rodgers enters his third season at the helm at Anfield, it is one which promises to define his reign. Was 2013/14 the high watermark? Over 100 goals scored and an expensively assembled Manchester City side pushed all the way, a title perhaps lost by a slip against Chelsea and a lapse against Crystal Palace; is there more in the tank? Arsenal, dazed and torn apart 5-1 at Anfield, Tottenham stuffed on home turf, sent packing 5-0, Manchester United being reduced to a demoralised schoolboy rabble at Old Trafford, the faithful watching on as Liverpool eased to a 3-0 win which could easily have been much, much more. And spirit shown to dig deep and see off Manchester City at Anfield (3-2) as the pressure cooker started to steam in the home stretch. Will Rodgers’ Liverpool do better? The ghosts of Houllier and Benitez say no, but only time and his transfer market judgement will tell.