You beat Chelsea home and away
You beat Manchester United home and away (rather thump them!)
You end a season with 86 points
And yet...
Liverpool end up being the only team in Premier League history to end up with the highest amount of points for a team not winning the title - a accolade they'd rather not want to recieve...
And yet who finishes above them - Manchester United, a team they dread the most.
United equalled Liverpool's record of 18 league titles - and that could not have been more inspiring than any reason to surmount a vicious title assault the coming season - but then you stumble!
4 losses in the first 9 games - too much said for an assault!
Atmosphere surrounding the game:
Everyone's talking about a mini-crisis at Anfield after 4 consecutive losses and fingers are quickly pointed out towards the American owners and their pathetic tenure at the Merseyside club.
Liverpool have been put on red alert as nearly 10,000 fans are expected to protest against the American owners.
Going into the game a SoS spokesperson Paul Garnder said
'There are two culprits - Gillett and Hicks.
'They are the ones who put us into £245million worth of debt, promised us a stadium which has not been built, took money out of the club to pay for their own expenses. We want the owners out now.'
SoS Les Lawson also offered his views on the way the club is currently runnig
'There have been protests before, but the Americans do have elephant-thick skin,'
'But there is no point in sitting back and doing nothing. This will be a direct action to keep the campaign in the public eye.
'There are plenty of other things going on behind the scenes to keep the campaign going, though. The fans have to do something to show their anger at the way Liverpool is being run.'
Liverpool stores have their beach balls sold out. With effect to this a beach ball security check would be run so that the same incident doesn't occur again.
Kenny Dalglish has come forward in defense of Rafa and has reached out to all the entire Liverpool family to stick together
"Everyone within the upper echelons of this club has no doubt whatsoever about Rafa - I know that for a fact.
"Everybody at Liverpool Football Club knows Rafa is the right man to get the club through this.
"You have also got to retain your belief in each other. The manager has to retain belief in his players and the players must retain their confidence in the manager.
"It's very important that everybody sticks together to get themselves through this."
Build up to the game:
Manchester United have gained 3 points from their Premier league encounter against Bolton as well as from their trip to Champion's League outing to Moscow whereas Liverpool conceded a goal by a beach ball at the stadium of light and lost against a resilient Lyon side after leading 1-0.
Wayne Rooney and Darren Fletcher are still struggling to shrug off a calf injury and a groin injury respectively whereas Park is ruled out with a knee injury.
Fernando Torres and Glen Johnson face late fitness test to face United whereas Gerrard is unlikely to make an appearance. Alberto Aquilani is lacking match fitness whereas Dossena (groin), Kelly (ankle), Kyrgiakos (knee), Riera (hamstring) are all ruled out -
talk about squad depthFormer KOP hero and Anfield's prodgial son Michael Owen is expected to start - and he may get a ferocious reception from the crowd for going to a club they hate the most.
Form:Current Run of Games:
Manchester United WWWDW
Liverpool WWWLL
Both the teams know that the current run of games,form et all goes out of the window for this game - for United going into this game would be gaining an edge over their rivals as well as regaining top spot from Chelsea and maintaining the lead at the top. For Liverpool - the game is of utmost importance - the KOP doesn't like losing to United (more so
after 4 consecutive defeats). This game would be the perfect oppurtunity to put together s string of good performances in the coming week and
staying alive in the race.
Prediction:
If United score first and Liverpool don't look like scoring the Anfield faithful will get nervous as time ticks. However with the entire backroom staff as well as the players stepping up in defense of Rafa, everyone will be up for the game.
If Liverpool score first Anfield would erupt - however they need to show a bit more composure and kill the game off with a second - they failed to do so against Lyon and paid the price.
Fiesty encounter. Expect tackles to fly throughout the game:
Liverpool 2 - 2 Manchester United
