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John Henry thanked the players and staff for their work—and told fans to try to enjoy the moment.
A week ago, the 2019-20 Premier League season ended. With Liverpool champions of England. For the first time in three decades. In the midst of a pandemic that almost derailed the season. A year after finishing second—and winning the Champions League.
The club are again on top of the footballing world, and given where they were ten years ago—with nobody sure they could compete for top honours in England and Europe any longer—that’s still a little surreal. For the fans and even for the club’s owner, John Henry.
“Every day I get up, it’s front and centre that we finally won [the league],” Henry said this week. “So, that’s my wish for you, that every morning you get up, for as long as you can, think about what we accomplished this year, and I hope you feel as proud as I do.
“The fact that we are champions of England, champions of Europe, the Club World Cup, the Super Cup is just an extraordinary accomplishment by this organisation and by these players. To be involved with that has really been the capstone of my career.”
Soon, attention will turn to defending their title—having had a week off, it’s now just a week before players return to training and less than four before they’re set to face Arsenal in the Community Shield. For now, though, there’s still time to enjoy the triumph.
Over the past year, this group of players and coaches has won the club’s first Club World Cup, their fourth Super Cup, their sixth European Cup. And now they’ve added the club’s nineteenth domestic league title. After three very long decades without one.
“To the staff, to the players, to all of you who expended so much over these last two years, I just want to say thank you from all of us at Fenway Sports Group,” Henry added. “I know you get this from the fans, I don’t know if you get it from us enough. Thank you.”
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Liverpool entered January favourites to win their first title in three decades. They ended it with the title all but won.
Given how close Liverpool had come to winning the league before only to watch things slip away, even commanding victories in the previous months over chasers Manchester City and Leicester City hadn’t been enough to make the fans feel comfortable heading into the new year. This time around, though, Liverpool wouldn’t let up or falter—not while the games mattered, in any case—and by the middle of January, even the most nervous fans had started to truly believe that this time it was for real.
January 2nd, Premier LeagueLiverpool 2–0 Sheffield United
New month, new year, same old Liverpool. Mohamed Salah scored early in the first half, adding another goal to his tally while fullback Andy Robertson got himself another assist—he would end the campaign second in the league in that category to teammate and fellow fullback Trent Alexander-Arnold. Then in the second half, Sadio Mané would get another for himself—set up by Salah. In between, the Reds would be absolutely dominant against a side that at the time looked to have a realistic shot at finishing in the Champions League places.
January 5th, FA CupLiverpool 1-0 Everton
Carlo Ancelotti had last been seen at Anfield frustrating the Reds as Napoli’s manager, and he brought that same energy to his first match in charge of local rivals Everton as the Blues ran out their strongest side against a mixed Liverpool squad and stymied the hosts for more than an hour. In the end, though, a spectacular first senior goal for Scouse youngster Curtis Jones would separate the two sides and provide a memorable moment in this cup edition of the derby.
January 11th, Premier LeagueTottenham Hotspur 0–1 Liverpool
Spurs had changed managers since Liverpool last faced them, bringing in Jose Mourinho to try to salvage something for a side that faced the Reds in the previous season’s Champions League final but had completely fallen apart to start 2019-20, and the Portuguese manager did about what you’d expect him to do here: he set up his side to defend against a top side, doing his best to suck the life out of another marquee match.
Liverpool, though, didn’t seem overly bothered and looked much the better side in the first, scoring a goal and comfortably ahead in the run of play. Then, in the second, they looked to manage the game, dialling back slightly and conserving energy and relying in the quality of their own defence to see things out. A seemingly dangerous approach, perhaps, but one this group showed they were more than capable of executing repeatedly this season—and an approach may have helped them to conserve energy and avoid a let-off in the league until the games didn’t matter any more.
January 19th, Premier LeagueLiverpool 2–0 Manchester United
It was the middle of January, 21 games into their season, Liverpool’s only blemish in the league remained a draw with United in the autumn. For the Reds, there was a chance for revenge—but VAR would try to spoil their party. After Virgil van Dijk put them up in the 14th minute, they would have a Roberto Firmino strike ruled out after Van Dijk was judged to have made contact with David de Gea jumping for a loose ball. Then Gini Wijnaldum was confirmed offside.
Add in a vintage performance for De Gea in the midst of an otherwise poor season and a game that should have been out of sight was worryingly close—until Salah got himself on the end of a long pass by Alisson, ran the length of the United half while shrugging off Daniel James, and slotted to settle the game in second half stoppage time. As Alisson sprinted the length of the pitch to celebrate and United heads dropped, Liverpool fans broke out—for the first time—in a triumphant chorus of we’re going to win the league.
January 23rd, Premier LeagueWolverhampton Wanderers 1–2 Liverpool
Having beaten Spurs and United, here was another game that in past seasons might have seen the Reds slip, as they went on the road to take on a very good Wolves side. A pair of Liverpool goals, though, with Henderson and Firmino—his final goal of the season until the final home game against Chelsea six months and one global pandemic later—striking on either side of a Raul Jimenez effort, and with the help of some strong goalkeeping from Alisson, again saw three points earned for the Reds.
January 26th, FA CupShrewsbury Town 2-2 Liverpool
It’s the magic of the cup. With the focus firmly on the league in the midst of a long and draining season, a highly changed Liverpool side went to New Meadow to take on League One Shrewsbury in front of less than 10,000 fans. The composition of the Reds’ eleven is evident from the goal scorers, with Curtis Jones recording his second cup effort and youth fullback Yasser Larouci scoring his first senior goal. Striker Jason Cummings, though, would score two for The Shrews and earn them a replay—in the middle of what was meant to be Liverpool’s mid-season break the next month.
January 29th, Premier LeagueWest Ham United 0–2 Liverpool
If West Ham might have taken any hope from watching a League One side give Liverpool—even a heavily rotated and very young Liverpool—trouble, that hope didn’t last long as the Reds ended the month drama free, easing past the Hammers as they made up the game in hand they’d had ever since heading to Qatar to win the Club World Cup.
They’d started the month 13 points up on Leicester and 14 points ahead of Man City with that game in hand. They ended it 19 points clear of City and 22 ahead of Leicester. As the fans had sung against United, there were no longer any doubts—doubts nurtured by three decades of coming up short—that they would win the league.
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The Liverpool loanee is unsure about his future at Swansea but loves the club.
Rhian Brewster has had an excellent season playing in the Championship with Swansea. He netted 11 goals in 22 appearances, and Swansea seem pretty keen to have him back. That said, Brewster himself has made it clear that his future next season is still up in the air.
“I have loved every moment of it, I love the club, I love the fans, I love the staff, I love everybody here,” Brewster told the Swansea club site. “I don’t know what is going to happen next year but if I don’t come back Swansea will always be in my heart.
“I’ll be Swansea forever and I will always keep tabs on them no matter what,” he added. “I just hope that the boys just go for it again next season. If I’m here then we’ll all push together, but if I’m not then I hope the boys dig deep, go for it again and don’t look back.”
“They will use this as motivation as I know we’re not going to want to feel like this again. I think we should just keep pushing and pushing and I love everyone at the club.”
The fact that Swansea didn’t manage to secure a promotion back to the Premier League probably means they’ll be going for it again without Brewster. The player has already been netting interest from other Premier League clubs (including Sheffield United) and for a player as good as he is, a move back to the Premier League is almost definitely (and should definitely be) on the cards.
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The goalkeeper waxes eloquent on just how incredible it is to have Klopp as boss.
We’re going to be reliving this particular season for a while, so it’s a good thing that all the players are fight there with us. This time, Alisson (a.k.a.: the Holy Goalie) sat down with ESPN program Bola da Vez and talked a lot about the Premier League trophy, Klopp, how great it was to win things, Klopp, and also Klopp.
“This was one of the most exhausting seasons I’ve ever had,” Alisson said. “I don’t know if it was due to the pandemic, the longer season… It was also one of the seasons I played less games because of injuries. This was one of the most exhausting seasons I’ve ever had. I don’t know if it was due to the pandemic, the longer season… It was also one of the seasons I played less games because of injuries.”
“We got out of the Champions League early, but I think this exhaustion comes from just giving everything we have every time,” he added, making a very good case for building out the team’s depth (please). “Klopp has a great portion of that, just telling us what the main objective is. We also care about how we are going to get to that objective — training, just how he manages our training sessions. He trusts us to do what he wants us to do, on not only training sessions, but also a day-to-day basis.”
“He is a passionate guy and he shows that. He wants to win and make Liverpool an even greater club.”
Hopefully nothing about the team dynamics change before next season, and we add on enough players to make the inevitable treble we’re about to win much less exhausting.