With the 2019/20 EPL campaign officially done and dusted, Liverpool FC and their fans were finally able to celebrate a Premier League title at Anfield. The individual accolades soon followed with Jordan Henderson winning the Football Writers’ Association Men’s Footballer of the Year and Jürgen Klopp being named the League Managers Association’s Manager of the Year.
Liverpool FC Celebrate EPL Title Win At Anfield
By Greg McKay
But for a club that won the title with a record seven games to spare and by a gap of 18 points, there is the question of where this Liverpool side sits in Premier League history. During the course of the season, Liverpool held the largest points lead in English top-flight history (25), most wins in a row (24), most victories in a season (32) and the best start ever in any of Europe’s top five leagues (61 points from their opening 21 matches).
As impressive as these accomplishments are they also point to the fact that Liverpool fell short of the more significant milestones that signal a truly legendary side.
‘The Invincibles’, as Arsenal’s 2003/04 team is known, are still the first and only team since Preston North End in 1889 to go through an entire season undefeated. In 2017/18, the ‘Centurions’ at Manchester City set the record for most points in a Premier League season at an even one hundred.
Not Invincible
Throughout much of this year’s campaign, Liverpool looked game for challenging both the Invincibles’ and Centurions’ records, but a shocking three-nil loss to relegated Watford in late February ended the hopes for an undefeated season and after the restart losses to Manchester City and Arsenal doomed the Reds’ plans of reaching triple digits in points.
Though Liverpool didn’t necessarily set the types of records that live on in one-name nicknames, the squad was able to achieve the one thing that had escaped Liverpool’s grasp since the year M.C. Hammer came out with “U Can’t Touch This”—a top flight English league crown.
For returning Liverpool to their “perch,” the current crop of players will at least go down as one of the greatest in Anfield’s memory. In some ways, however, the 2019/20 Liverpool was less impressive than the 2018/19 team that pushed Manchester City to the brink. In 2018/19, Klopp’s brand of heavy metal football was finally coming together to devastating effect.
Front Three
While Mo Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino looked like the best front three in Europe, a spine of the team built around Virgil van Dijk and Jordan Henderson led the team to Champions League glory.
In 2019/20, Liverpool seemed a more assured side but rarely put in the types of all-encompassing, dominating displays we saw in recent seasons where they seemed to run rampant over the competition at times. More often, Liverpool were winning comfortably and confidently, without necessarily overplaying their hand.
Though as great as Liverpool were over the course of the season, the rest of the Premier League rarely offered much in terms of resistance. Manchester City never really looked fully up to the task with some early issues at centerback forcing their only true midfield anchor, Fernandinho, to play in the backline and wreaking havoc on Guardiola’s best laid tactical plans.
The lack of any serious title contenders begs the question just how dominating this Liverpool team could have been had they had another horse pushing them to the finish line.
Legacy
Ultimately, the matter of where the 2019/20 Liverpool side sits in the record books alongside the other great EPL teams of the past thirty years remains to be seen. For Liverpool fans, that is a conversation for another day and records or no records, the team that returned the trophy to Anfield will be remembered for years to come.