After Saturday’s big win over Norwich there’s a sense of optimism around our club and our fans, and the league table is beginning to show a few signs of progress for the reds. What can we realistically expect to finish the 2012/13 season with?
Trophies? One of the main problems we’ve had this season is that we haven’t yet beaten a team above us in the league and to win the Europa League or FA cup we’ll have to knock out teams we haven’t yet been able to win against. I’m not saying we can’t do it but it will be very hard. We’ve shown this season we’re more than capable of outplaying pretty much anyone, but when it comes to outscoring them we’ve struggled. The addition of Daniel Sturridge looks to be working and just maybe with the extra goals he currently looks like scoring we can have a good run in one or both competitions. Either trophy in Brendan Rodgers’ first season in charge would be a great achievement.
League position? Where constitutes an acceptable league finish will be somewhat determined by who wins the domestic cups. Currently it’s top four for the Champions League and only 5th place gets you a Europa League spot. Chelsea winning the League Cup would give 6th place a European spot and if two teams in the top four contest the FA cup final that would also give 7th place entry into the Europa League. Long term we want to be back in the Champions League on a regular basis but until that happens we still need to be playing European football at Anfield so it’s important we qualify for at least the Europa League.
Where we will actually finish in the league is anybody’s guess. After the next couple of matches we’ll have played everybody in the top half of the league away from home so our remaining big games will be at home. We certainly have the chance to get a reasonable points tally but in my opinion too many teams above us need to drop too many points for us to reach 4th this season. I have a paranoia about the fact that David Moyes has never won at Anfield and when Everton visit us towards the end of this season it’s likely to be his last opportunity to do so and I really have a feeling Everton will take the points from that clash. But aside from that game I’m quietly confident in all of our remaining fixtures really. If we could win at the Emirates in a couple of weeks I’d say we have a good chance of finishing above Arsenal, and a couple of injuries to key players at Goodison could see us leapfrog Everton so I think we’ve got a good shot at finishing top five as long as we can remain consistent.
The main aim for Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool this season is to improve on last term and after a six month settling in period and a second transfer window it would appear the foundations for a successful team have been laid. The next few months will dictate how our new manager will be judged but at just past the halfway point of the season it’s fair to say he’s doing well.
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