Liverpool's Carling Cup Triumph a Baby Step on Reds' Long Road to Recovery

Liverpool won its first trophy in six years on Sunday, defeating Cardiff City to lift the Carling Cup and with it the hopes of an estimated 71 million long-suffering Reds around the world.

From Anfield to Azerbaijan, Liverpool fans awoke with heady optimism on Monday morning, daring to dream of a return to halcyon days gone by.

So what if the Carling Cup is treated like a squad rotation exercise by some managers and a youth development program by others? So what if Liverpool needed a penalty shootout to down an opponent from the league below?

Success was a habit Liverpool had broken, but could they have snatched it up again at the new Wembley? Are we now to believe they're ready to gorge on it once again?

"It would be stupid if we accept just this. We need more, we want more," said their talisman Steven Gerrard.

"We don't want to stop here, we want to keep going," said their iconic manager Kenny Dalglish. "It [Liverpool] means an awful lot to a lot of people."

That it does, and not least to Dalglish himself—who, with the victory, became the first man to win all three of English football's major competitions as both a player and a manager.

The big question now is whether Liverpool's Mersey Messiah and his expensively-assembled squad can carry their Carling Cup momentum to loftier climbs.

Wrote Alan Hansen in the Daily Telegraph:

"For a club of Liverpool’s stature, the priority this season has to be qualification for the Champions League and I believe they simply had to win at Wembley to sustain that ambition."

"If things had gone the other way and Cardiff had emerged with the trophy, who knows how Liverpool would have reacted? But what happened to Arsenal last year only proves the damaging effects of failure on the big stage."

Arsenal's fate following the Carling Cup final defeat to Birmingham City last season was the much-told cautionary tale for Liverpool on Sunday.

Arsene Wenger's men slumped on all fronts after passing up the chance to end their trophy drought last February. It was a Sliding Doors moment in their season, and the door slammed shut with a failure that reinforced every one of Arsenal's nagging doubts.

"It’s weird. Right up until the end of February, we were competing on every front. Then we lost the League Cup final and we started asking ourselves questions," said Gunners striker Marouane Chamakh.

Some of Liverpool's questions were answered at Wembley. They scrapped ferociously, stuck together and ultimately prevailed in a battle of high stakes and frayed nerves. Dalglish's team had everything to lose, and yet they won.

But at the same time we were reminded of their ever-transparent shortcomings, and the folly of Dalglish's ways in the transfer market. Andy Carroll was anonymous. Jordan Henderson continues to underwhelm in midfield.

Dalglish has spent £114.2 million since being lured back to management in January 2011, but you wouldn't know it to watch his team. As Ian Herbert pointed out in The Independent, Liverpool are guilty of converting the lowest percentages of their chances in the Premier League this season.

Hardly the performance you'd expect of a club that has invested £57.7 million on strikers (Carroll and Luis Suarez) and £43.5 million on midfielders to provide for them (Henderson, Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing).

Of the six Dalglish signings who started at Wembley (the five mentioned plus Luis Enrique), only Downing left with his reputation enhanced. And it was left to two Rafa Benitez buys, Martin Skrtel and Dirk Kuyt, to get the goals.

If Liverpool are truly to progress they must find their way to goal. They must come upon a midfield formation that gets the best out of the bodies employed there. And Dalglish must spend more wisely this summer.

Ultimately, if winning the Carling Cup serves to convince Dalglish he's come upon the right formula, then it wasn't worth winning. But if he can use Sunday's triumph as a staging point for further conquests, accepting his team's flaws and addressing its limitations, this could be the start of something on Merseyside.

A top-four finish this season seems far-fetched at the expense of two of Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. More realistic targets are an FA Cup final appearance in May and a fifth spot in the Premier League.

If Dalglish can achieve both of those, he'll have his beloved Liverpool back on the road to recovery and back in the public consciousness as the perennial contenders they once were. What's more, the club will hope to start attracting the kinds of players it needs to be a serious challenger again.

"We already know that there are big players who want to join us next summer because they believe in the project," said Liverpool director of football Damian Comolli.

"

Everybody in Europe knows what Liverpool football club are trying to do. Obviously the fact that we're back playing in Europe and we've won the trophy, it's all positive things.

There's a very positive vibe around the club around Europe. A lot of players I know are very interested about joining the project because it's a very interesting project.

"

They used to call Wembley "Anfield South," and perhaps one day they will again.

But before the Liverpool fans amongst you get carried away, remember that Dalglish's current offering is a good deal less than the sum of its parts. And winning a Carling Cup doesn't change that on its own.

Sunday was worth celebrating, alright, but it was no more than a baby step on Liverpool's long road to recovery.