Is This The Year That Liverpool Will Mount A Serious Title Challenge?

The start of the Premier League season is just around the corner and as usual I can’t wait. As I think of what every football fan has to look forward to, I begin to mull over certain questions and I am struck by a sense of deja vu.

Like every summer there has been a lengthy transfer saga which remains unresolved, media and fans alike have different points of view as to whether any team outside of the big four can break into a Champions League place and whether any team that comes up from the Championship will have any chance of staying in the division. But there is one more question, and it always catches my attention, can Liverpool mount a serious title challenge?

We usually don’t have to wait that long for the answer.

My personal opinion is that Liverpool showed a huge improvement and a lot of potential last season. While they did finish fourth they did only finish 11 points behind the winners, Manchester United.

Now to use the word “only” makes it sound like they nearly did it, and of course we know that finishing 11points off of the pace is too far behind to suggest that they did have a realistic shot at winning the title. But with regards to Liverpool it was a massive improvement in comparison to the 21 points that they trailed at the end of the previous season.

There is no doubting the reason for this improvement, the signing of Fernando Torres. One year on this striker who was always considered as a promising player has now blossomed into a world-class talent and it has been argued that he is the best striker in the world at the moment.

His record of 24 goals in 33 Premier League appearances was the goal record that Liverpool’s strikers have got nowhere near since the departure of Michael Owen, and it seemed that his arrival had managed to take some of the pressure off of the club's captain Steven Gerrard who in previous seasons has carried the team at times.

Gerrard and Torres were a joy to watch, and their link up play in the second half of the season was the reason behind Liverpool’s strong end of season run where they lost just once in their last 15 games and made the semifinals of the Champions League. The form shown by the team has hinted that there may be things to come but is this the season that they will do it?

It is appropriate to mention that the one defeat was against Manchester United, and it was a heavy one, a 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford that ended any slim hopes of the title finally finding its way to Anfield. This defeat sums up why the club ended up finishing fourth in a season that at times looked like it could offer so much more.

Their record against other members of the big four hasn’t been good for a number of seasons, and last year was no different. While they got creditable draws away at Arsenal and Chelsea, they failed to win against both of these teams at Anfield and slipped to defeat against Manchester United there as well.

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