An entity can moves either forward or backward but the composite sum of its parts may move in many different ways, all in an attempt to create some momentum. Because standing still is the fast track to failure actions are taken in any direction to prevent inertia. Whether or not those individual pieces are broken or not capable of doing that job that is required of them can only be seen over time.
Progress is defined by the distance one travels between their starting point and an ultimate goal. For Liverpool, the intermediate goal is a swift return to Champions League football and using the money that brings with it to attract the right players to the club that would allow it to challenge for the title. Simply engaging in a round robin contest for fourth place is not enough. In regard to that aim, the idea of finishing in the top four is too narrow-minded a view and does not address any of the problems that would inhibit Brendan Rodgers and his team move on to the next level should they find themselves in a position to qualify for the Champions League at some point. There must be a better way to measure how far the team has yet to go.
The table never lies, so says the cliché First and foremost, the notion of fourth place as a barometer gets thrown out of the window immediately, for there have been many different points tallies that would get you to that financially sacred hallmark. In 2003-04, Gerard Houllier’s last season in charge of Liverpool and one that would eventually set them up on the road to Istanbul with a top four finish and entry to the qualifiers, 57 points was the mark (Liverpool finishing on 60, Everton on 56). To put some perspective on how much things have changed since then, last year Liverpool in a unanimously condemned campaign amassed 52. Rather unsurprisingly, fourth become a lot harder to reach.
Setting a benchmark in terms of a points tally seems so simplistic it veers on condescension. Before a team sets out to finish first or seventeenth, they must first assess how many points are required and then set about amassing them in the best way possible. The only difference between those challenging higher up the table than those scrapping for survival will be the room for error within those targets. In recent history there has been a leveling out of the quality within the top division. Those teams that possess talented players are more evenly spread than they were some five or six years ago. This is not a reflection on the quality, more so an indication of the task teams are faced with in increasingly difficult financial climate.
City and Chelsea are exempt from this while sides like Spurs and Everton have caught up in addition to the decline over time of Arsenal and Liverpool. With that being said there’s a number of teams vying for what appears to be one space at the head of the table in regard to English football. The gap between what’s required for a third and fifth place finish appears to be getting smaller all the time. It’s gone from twenty points at the end of 08-09 to just five. Both then and now the line appears to be around the seventy point mark. Even that – which might not be enough – would still require an additional 29 points from the remaining sixteen games, a consistency which has evaded Liverpool for some time. So is there nothing left to aim for? Not quite.
Undertaking a journey like this, it’s very easy to see the long road ahead and feel overwhelmed by the amount of work still left to do. There are some out there unsure as to whether all this change has been for the better. People get angry – sometimes understandably so – about mistakes that have been made, both now and in the past. In a sport so unpredictable as this however, the human factor cannot be ignored and it’s near impossible to go through 38 games and be completely error free. Once they’re done, there is no erasing them from history and the easiest thing to do is to put them right as soon as possible. In terms of the disastrous league season, Brendan Rodgers is doing just that.
Of the 22 games Liverpool have played last year, they have gained points overall on the equivalent fixture. It becomes very difficult when factoring in the three relegated sides and who to assign them to so in this case every possible scenario has been explored with each of Reading, Southampton and West Ham playing the part of Wolves, Bolton and Blackburn. So far the results vary but all off them see more points accrued, with a maximum return of being seven points better off.
The potential problem with looking back this way is that because of how bad things were in the league Rodgers may be being given too low a bar to overcome. All that depends on how high he goes above it, which is something to be judged in the summer. If the trend of turning the disappointing defeats into wins (Fulham & Wigan at Anfield, QPR away) continues then it won’t be by a few points that the target is beaten and it will be much closer to the grander prize of the aforementioned seventy point mark which could earn Liverpool a top four place. Even if the team came fifth or sixth with a total like this, it would represent a massive turnaround. Something that will be heavily impacted one way or another by what happens in the coming weeks.
Having to go to Old Trafford as well as the Emirates and the Etihad in quick succession was never going to easy. The idea of picking points up at these places is a difficult one, let alone when all three come in quick succession Following the defeat to Manchester United on Sunday, a huge emphasis will be placed on the visit of Norwich to Anfield this Saturday. It’s importance is not just on getting back on track in the face of a difficult run of games but also it’s another chance to pick up more points on last, even more so when doubled with the fact that anything less than a win at Arsenal the following week represents a loss.
Whatever happens in the games against Norwich, Arsenal and Manchester City – it is the following chapter that will come to define Brendan Rodgers’ first year in charge of Liverpool. Three home games with a trip to Wigan sandwiched in between; West Brom, Swansea and Tottenham. These four games put together accrued an abysmal total of three points in the previous season, meaning that a solitary victory in any of those games will match it. Only one team of the twenty in the Premier League matters right now and those above it can do what they want, so long as Brendan Rodgers and his men continue to pick up points wherever they can. For now Liverpool can ignore the table and concentrate on winning. Maybe then at the end of the campaign it will make for happy reading.
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