Will Liverpool challenge for the Premier League title next season?

Liverpool did not have the best of seasons but should there be optimism? The fans are already split. Plus, Richarlison, Parker and more.

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Now the end of the League season has arrived and all the ups and down, and have been decided I wanted to write a few words on my support for Jurgen Klopp. Yes, this has been a bad year for Liverpool and Klopp, but he has only had one bad year and his overall record is pretty damn good.

1st full season = Champions league qualification, 2nd CL final and CL qualification, 3rd CL winners – second in league by 1 point, 4th PL winners (26W & 1D from first 27 games), 5th CL qualification after losing 765 players to injury, 6th domestic cups, CL final and Prem runners up by a point.

I also do not think enough credit has been given to Klopp and Liverpool for pushing this “greatest team ever” so close that the title had to be decided on the final day of the season, twice, while they had to keep one eye on an upcoming CL final, twice. Unlike the current media darlings Liverpool did not buckle under the pressure.

Yes, a lot of commentators state that Liverpool should have won more during Klopp’s tenure, but let’s be fair, our 1 Prem and 1 CL win could easily be 3 Prems and 2 CL win, with 3 goals going the opposite way, sadly though they did not. However, I am happy with what we have won whilst facing an infinitely wealthy state-funded project.

Within any self-sustaining business model (100+ elephants), you will get peaks and troughs, good years and bad. It is how you react after the bad years that shows the true worth of a man/team.

Yes, Klopp has made mistakes, all managers have, and if you do not have unlimited funds you have to find ways to cope with these errors or injuries. JK is not able to simply go out and buy numerous centre backs until the right combination is found.

But like every species, evolution is needed as predators will always try to find a way to take the dominate group down. Jose, Rafa and the pragmatic football of the early 2000’s being case-in-point. Jurgen’s Dortmund style “heavy metal” pressing was regularly tweaked to meet need and even the “otherworldly” Pep has lowered his standards to hit the occasional “long-ball” this season.

I fully expect Klopp to again adjust this mid-season change of play and deliver something unexpected and Liverpool to challenge again next season

As Liverpool fans, yes, it was a season we were glad to see the back of. Clearly in need of midfield reinforcements we have been linked with a million names. Clearly, Jude didn’t fancy us, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other elite midfielders that can improve us.

Barella is the one that for me should be a priority. He isn’t a one-season wonder and would walk into most Premier League XIs. Ugarte is a different beast and you want a master shitehouser on your side. Barella would be a hard one to snare and Ugarte seems to be heading to Chelsea. Looks like Liverpool’s transfer committee has lost its Midas touch and we’ll end up with A Mac. Not sure what he brings to the table that Curtis Jr doesn’t.

Signing players for the sake of bulking up the numbers? Or perhaps none of our top targets want to play for us? Not looking forward to the next season already.

So this morning I click on what I think will be an interesting article published by yourselves at Bundesliga towers. . However, within seconds of clicking on the article a little graphic caused a reflux of PTSD I thought had long passed following my fury at the 2012 Euros. Yes… Scott f*****g Parker gets in another side ahead of Michael Carrick.

I thought about this email, I truly did. I had a brew, gave it a stroll but no I had to send it…

Football365 writers leading the charge for Scott Parker to partner Gerrard at the Euros because he runs around a lot and “gets what the shirt means” or something other shite. I’ve never truly forgiven this website for those times and I appreciate most of current the staff were probably still in uni back then but please just because cockney Scott won the cockney writers award it doesn’t mean he deserved it, if he’d played better they might not have gotten relegated! And he CERTAINLY was never ever in anyway close to the quality of footballer that multiple title winning, trophy laden Michael Carrick was. Please don’t make the mistakes your predecessors did.

I see . Now I get that its not a bad shout, but it seems a tad unfair. He was injured for a good part of the season and he hasn’t played poorly when he has been available and used, even when that was out of position. Richarlison has only played 1000 mins in the league this season. In those limited minutes he has 3 assists and a goal. He also hasn’t looked as out of his depth as Aubemayang. He also has the same amount of goal involvements in that time as Joao Felix.

Now you can say that he cost a lot more than those two, but he didn’t cost as much as Antony or Mudryk. Antony has two more goal involvements than him in almost double the amount of playing time. Mudryk has just looked poor.

That’s just comparing him to other attackers. There’s still Cucurella and some more we can go through if we expand that to other areas of the pitch. It just seem like you chose Richarlison because it’s the most in line with the twitter/bantz narrative.

David De Gea saved a penalty and it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in your 427 conclusions. Shame.On.You.

Bit late to final day reflections, but one to add, prompted by of the absurdity of not being able to see all the games in England, even if you had paid for a subscription.

I’ve lived in Asia for many years, and anyone who has visited and watched a Saturday of football here will appreciate this.

Unlike in England, multiple games will be on in bars with many screens.

Yesterday was the first ever time I have been in a bar with none of them showing the Man United match, either whilst living here, or twenty prior years of regular visits. United really do have lots of supporters in this part of the world.

The bar I was in, my local, has six screens. Normally, and perhaps selfishly, I would push for United to be on one of them, but with mates and locals supporting Leeds, Everton, West Ham, Southampton, Newcastle and F1 fanatics, was happy to acquiesce, smuggishly happy the Fulham result wasn’t important.

The Forest, City and West Brom fans didn’t care either.

Now, off to hopefully watch Sheffield Wednesday win.