With talk over Liverpool’s season falling off the tracks with only the Premier League to play for, the mood around Anfield shall not be shifted. Just the title will be just fine.
March was a peculiar month.
One Premier League fixture, a Champions League exit, a domestic cup final lost, much chatter over a prospective departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold to Real Madrid and, at least for Liverpool’s supporters, there seemed to have been far too much thinking time ahead of what was a second Merseyside derby in just seven weeks.
Only our second league game in five weeks, Arsenal having procured a narrow win over Fulham 24 hours earlier to cut the gap at the top to nine points, a late and contentious two points lost at Goodison Park in February, and more projected frustration at the hands of Moyesball looming; what with Alisson ruled out and Curtis Jones being asked to have a pop at playing at right-back, a few Reds heads were in danger of falling off in the buildup to kickoff.
In the car on the way to Anfield, Phil opined: “If we lose tonight, then we’ll bottle it.”
On the way back to the car, I asked him if the events of the evening had eased his concerns. He admitted they had, although he stubbornly will not join in with songs about winning the league until its mathematically over and done with.
I was quite zen about Wednesday night myself, even at half-time with the scoreline goalless, Everton should having been down to ten men and Beto proving himself a steadily improving nuisance, with a disallowed goal and a post struck.
I just felt that our opportunity would come and that we would take it.
‘Only’ the league title
Liverpool’s March disappointments against PSG and Newcastle, the recent lack of league games, FA Cup weekends and an international break – all of these things added up to being potential momentum-killers in a season in which we were suddenly being asked will it really be enough if we ‘only’ win the league title.
Only win the league title, you say?
Outside the Anfield bubble of support people tend to fall into two predominant categories, with one wanting to feel better about themselves and their misfiring football lot in life by pouring scorn on what we’re set to achieve, basically attempting to cushion the blow of Liverpool winning a 20th league title, because such an event really will ruin some peoples’ summer.
For others, they are genuinely pleased for us no matter who they support. They enjoy the football we play; they admire the manner in which we adore our team; they look at the prizes we’ve been denied in recent times by a financially doped-up rival and subsequently don’t begrudge us the type of party we were dispossessed of by a global pandemic.
Only the league title, you say?
It was ‘only’ the league title that we won during the best two championship-winning seasons of my lifetime in 1978/79 and 1987/88. It was ‘only’ the league title that we won in 2019/20 to break the 30-year curse.
It was ‘only’ the league title that Arsenal won during their Invincible campaign of 2003/04. It was ‘only’ the league title that Man United won in 1992/93, when ending a 26-year drought. It was ‘only’ the league title that Leicester won against the odds in 2015/16.
It was ‘only’ the league title that Everton won in 1986/87, since which they’ve lifted just one other serious trophy, an occurrence that was now 30 years ago apparently…
There are a lot of fanbases out there that wish they could ‘just’ win the league. Should – no – once we get over that finish line, Anfield is going to party hearty over ‘just’ winning the league.
Goodbye, Goodison-era Everton
It wasn’t a classic on Wednesday night by any means, but I’ve seen many Merseyside derbies that offered up far worse fayre than the latest one did.
A fine Diogo Jota goal settled the issue, and in contemporary football reading, the argument of Luis Diaz being offside was a non-issue, despite Moyes trying to fire up the DeLorean and hit 88mph to take us back to an era with a very different interpretation.
Moyes is no Marty McFly, though, and while he is increasingly beginning to resemble Doc Brown, he’s more Old Man Peabody, off to breed his pine trees.
A second derby match within a relatively short period, the last one before Everton move home. The Blues possibly don’t know it yet, within a blizzard of excitement and test events down at Bramley Moor, but Everton will stop feeling like the Everton they currently are once they depart Goodison for the last time.
Every club stops feeling like their former self when they move grounds. There are defined auras that surround football clubs and the streets among where they have played for eons.
Arsenal, Man City, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Leicester, Southampton, Bolton to name but a few have had to generate a new soul after leaving the family homestead, some with greater success than others.
Everton post-Goodison will have a different aura about them. They’ll never be the same entity again. Different and new doesn’t mean it will be bad, but with change come endings, to sit alongside the new beginnings.
Some things are likely to stay the same, though.
Up the champions-elect Reds.
