Our 3-1 victory over Pompey in our final league game of the season, wasn?t enough for us to snatch second place from the mancs as they ran out 4-0 winners after a deplorable performance from Charlton. However, this fact didn?t deflect many Reds from celebrating a season that had seen the club making huge progress.
The Pompey fans had seen their side show some great form in recent weeks to escape from what looked liked a doomed position into surviving relegation with a game to spare. This was the game, and they were determined to party regardless of the scoreline, hence their chants of ?we don?t care? but I think many of us were feeling exactly the same way.
The game itself was a pretty dull affair. The most notable thing in the first half was when Xabi gave us all a fright by landing awkwardly on his ankle and being stretchered off, leaving many of us fearing that he might miss next weeks FA Cup final but it has since transpired that he looks as if he?ll be ok. The second half started as if it would follow a similar pattern to the first but after a few minutes Harry Kewell won a good header for Morientes to find Fowler who, despite being surrounded by 4 blue shirts, took one touch and slotted the ball home with precision to celebrate his new contract with his 5th goal in 6 games.
Kewell was again involved for are second goal as he passed to Cisse who ran on and hit a cross come shot that was palmed out by Kiely but only to the feet of Crouch, who stuck the chance away from 5 yards for his 13th of the season. Pompey, despite the fact that many of their fans ?didn?t care?, then started to come back into it and eventually got back into it when some bloke hit a decent cross into the Liverpool box and some other bloke put it away at the far post. Liverpool finished the game off in the dying minutes when Cisse broke away from the Pompey defence and finished well for his 18th goal of the season and the 101st of Liverpool?s.
This victory was a fitting end to what has been our best ever performance in the Premiership since it began and all the statistics from our campaign make for good reading. The win on Sunday was our 11th straight victory in all competitions which equals the club record, it was also our 9th straight PL win in row and our 25th league win of the season which is the most wins we?ve ever had in a 38 game season. The 82 pts we finished with was also the most we?ve ever had in the Premiership and would have been enough to win the league in at least 3 of the previous 10 season?s. Defensively we have also been very impressive and Pepe Reina?s first season between the sticks saw us beat the clubs record for most consecutive clean sheets.
All of these statistics of the season make impressive reading for Reds fans but they are even more remarkable when you also consider we achieved them in a season where we have had to play way more games then anybody else. Our season started way back last July when we had to play in the pre-qualifying games for the CL and the season had only just begun when we had to go off to play in the Super Cup final. However, perhaps most damaging of all was being forced to fly to the far side of the world and take part in the meaningless Mickey Mouse World Club Sandwich competition, in the middle of the season. It was no surprise that shortly after returning from this competition that we suffered a mid season slump.
However, we still can?t afford to get too carried away with things because despite all of the great statistics we achieved and the huge progress we have made in this past season, we still only finished 3rd. So where did it go wrong? For me, there are two reasons why we didn?t do even better.
Firstly, we started the season badly and suffered a bit of a goal drought, which also returned to haunt us once again in mid-season. We dominated all of the games we played in these two periods and created lots of chances but frustratingly couldn?t put them away and consequently dropped a lot of silly points. I think this situation was largely addressed in the latter part of the season when our forwards started finding the net again and the signing of Fowler was a masterstroke by Rafa which certainly helped to improve us in that department.
Secondly, and for me far more serious, was our performances against the other 3 top sides. Against chelski we were well beaten both home and away, against the mancs we drew 1 and lost 1 and against the Gooners we won 1 and lost 1. This gave us a paltry return of 4pts out of a possible 18 and badly needs to improve next season if we are to have any hopes of seriously challenging or even winning the Premiership. We may not approve of their methods or their over-rated whinging manager but chelski won the Premiership because they were the best and most consistent side in the league, over the season.
We have got the better of them in Europe and dumped them out of the FA Cup but in the league we have failed miserably. We have reduced the points gap from 35 or so last season to just 9 this time but we must do even more next time. I firmly believe that we will finish in the top two next season. I think we will be able to handle the mancs and the Gooners but to get ahead of chelski and into first place, we can?t rely on other teams to do the job for us and we must beat them ourselves. That is the challenge ahead of us in the Premiership next season but I believe we are up to it and this time next year we will be celebrating the return of ?our bread and butter? back home to Anfield.
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