It’s a cliché, but football
really is a funny old game.
I’ve stayed quiet all through
2014 as Liverpool have won game after game, coming from 4th place up
into 2nd, and then into 1st. Talk of qualifying for the
Champions League turned into talk of winning the title, but I stayed out of it
all. The reason? We’ve never really had a decent cushion and we had two
fixtures that I wasn’t confident about, Chelsea at home and Palace away. I felt
winning the title was a possibility, but not a probability. Even after the wins
against Man City and Norwich there was still a massive amount to be done.
I don’t like to think of myself
as a pessimist, I have faith and nobody could fail to be impressed with how we’ve
been playing, but I didn’t get the same feeling as so many others about us
becoming champions. I was too concerned about those two fixtures.
The games came and went, and my
fears were realised, we took one point from a possible six, allowing City to
overtake us, giving them a two point advantage going into the final weekend.
The funny thing? I now believe
we can finish 1st much more strongly than I have done at any time
this year. There have always been too many games to go, too many results that
needed to go in our favour, too much room for error. And now? We only need two
scorelines to go right and we’ll finish on top of the pile, and they’re both
realistic scores.
Can we beat Newcastle at
Anfield? Of course. Can West Ham turn up at a nervous Etihad stadium and sneak
a 1-0? Of course they can.
I’m not saying we will
definitely finish top, City have far too much quality to just assume West Ham
will beat them, but I’ve never been as optimistic about our chances as I am
right now. That point at Crystal Palace could turn out to be priceless, not
disastrous.
