The last time Liverpool won the league title, society still laboured under the yoke of the pandemic. Jurgen Klopp and his players were corralled at the Formby Hall Hotel, north of the city, on the night of June 25th 2020 when Chelsea beat Manchester City and handed them the trophy. They were the only guests. They had a barbecue and did interviews with broadcasters on laptops.
They lifted the trophy a month later in front of a near-deserted Anfield. There were only a few hundred people there to see it, mainly the players’ families. The players walked on to the Kop and Kenny Dalglish, wearing a red mask emblazoned with the club crest, handed the players their medals but was not permitted to hang them round their necks.
All the players could do was imagine what it would be like if the supporters were there to share the joy of their first title for 30 years. ‘It felt as if we could feel the spirit of the fans there,’ Jordan Henderson, the club captain, said, ‘the ones who are still with us and the ones who are not.’
This Sunday at Anfield, when Liverpool won the league again, it was different. This time, their joyous 5-1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur in front of more than 60,000 delirious fans, a victory which gave them their 20th league title with four games to spare, felt like a catharsis and a carnival rolled into one.
It was an assault on the senses, the way football should be. There was the rolling thunder of noise as the supporters went through their hymn book. ‘Ee-aye-addio, we’re going to win the league,’ the Kop sang and football’s arcane language made it feel as though the ghost of Bill Shankly walked amongst them.
And then there were the sights. The red and white of supporters’ shirts in the brilliant spring sunshine, an escaping battalion of red balloons dancing and bobbing across the pitch late in the second half, Mo Salah taking a selfie for a fan in front of the Kop after he scored Liverpool’s fourth. And the acrid smell of the plumes of smoke from flares that seemed to turn the sky around Anfield crimson.
Liverpool won a 20th top-flight title after thumping Tottenham 5-1 at a jubilant Anfield
The victory felt like a catharsis and a carnival rolled into one. It was an assault on the senses
A special cover of The Verdict celebrates Liverpool’s 20 titles – matching Man United
It felt as if all the emotions that had been denied Liverpool and their fans that day five years ago came bursting out into the open in a great explosion of joy and celebration in the sunshine of a glorious spring day on Merseyside. It felt as if Liverpool was celebrating not one league title, but two.
And this was a big one. This was number 20. This was the one that brought them level with Manchester United at the top of English football’s hierarchy. It was the one that put them back on the perch that Sir Alex Ferguson had knocked them off all those years ago when he shattered Liverpool’s hegemony.
Just as when Rory McIlroy won The Masters earlier this month and became only the sixth player in the history of golf to complete the career Grand Slam of all four majors, this was an afternoon when you felt the tectonic plates of sport shifting and football’s legends being redrawn.
Nobody can argue now that Liverpool are not England’s most successful club, particularly when you add in the six European Cups they have won. Whether they are the biggest is a different matter but who cares about that? As United wallow in bottom-half ignominy, Liverpool are back at the summit.
The carnival had started hours before kick-off. At the end of the M62, where the traffic starts to crawl and pool at the Rocket junction, fans twirled red and white scarves from their car windows. On Queen’s Drive, a man perched precariously on a ladder above a take-away, tying a Liverpool flag with ‘Champions’ printed on it on the wall.
Thousands of supporters had gathered on the Anfield Road to greet the bus carrying the Liverpool players. Some had climbed trees. Some stood on scaffolding. Some stood on balconies. Some on roofs. A few had scaled the oblong outcrop of the LFCTV studio and danced on top of that.
The acrid smell of smoke from flares filled the air and turned the air red. When the coach finally emerged like a ghost ship sailing a red sea, roars of support and encouragement rent the air. Songs associated with other triumphs blared out. ‘Allez, Allez, Allez,’ the supporters shouted as an army of kids sat on an army of stooped shoulders.
It would have been quite a party for Spurs to spoil but they have garnered an unwanted reputation this season for being accommodating opponents and fixing the problems of others. It felt reasonable for Liverpool supporters to expect they would get the point they needed even when Spurs took an early lead. ‘Dr Tottenham will see you now,’ has not gained currency as a saying for nothing.
This was a big one. This was number 20, bringing them level with Manchester United
As United wallow in bottom-half ignominy, Liverpool are back at the summit again
It would have been quite a party for Spurs to spoil but Liverpool hit back soon after trailing
It only took them four minutes to get the equaliser they needed for the point they required to put the title out of Arsenal’s reach after Luis Diaz tapped home at the back post
Liverpool’s nerves settled when Alexis Mac Allister found the net with a thunderbolt
It felt reasonable for Liverpool supporters to expect they would get the point they needed even when Spurs took an early lead, Dominic Solanke guiding a header beyond Alisson
When Salah drilled in a fourth, it elicited the loudest cheer of all and that request for a selfie
The Kop was a wall of noise. They will make to make room for Arne Slot on the wall of banners
And on this day, the Kop was not empty. It was a wall of noise, a wall of scarves held high during the traditional singing of You’ll Never Walk Alone, a wall of banners including the one behind the goal of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish, Rafa Benitez and Klopp. They will have to make space for an image of Arne Slot, too, now.
Some have sought to damn Slot’s achievement in his debut season in English football with faint praise. That is a mistake. Those – and they were in the overwhelming majority – who expected Liverpool to struggle this season in the wake of the departure of Klopp have been utterly confounded.
Slot has made the transition seamless. He has been strong enough to avoid any attempt at revolution. He took the strong group of players that Klopp bequeathed him, the excellent blend of youth and experience, and he made it even stronger. He did not sign players. He just improved players.
And he improved the team, too. Maybe Liverpool have not been as exciting to watch as they were under Klopp but they have been more mature and more dominant. They play with a certainty and an assurance and an acute tactical awareness that hallmarks of the mix of humility and confidence that Slot, the first Dutch coach to win the English top flight title, has brought with him to Anfield.
This is not the greatest Liverpool title-winning side there has ever been. There is not enough fantasy in it for that. There is no Dalglish in this side, no Roberto Firmino, either. Nor is there a midfielder in the style of Graeme Souness. But there is still something imperious about it. It can look the greatest teams square in the eye.
In Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool have perhaps the greatest central defender ever to play for the club and in Salah, they have one of its greatest ever forwards. Bearing in mind that a mural of Ian Rush glares down on the Anfield Road from the side of a house, that is a high, high bar.
There is no quit in this team, either. It is a team that seems to revel in adversity. It certainly does not shrink from it. When Spurs took the lead in the 12th minute with a towering header from ex-Liverpool forward Dominic Solanke, Liverpool seemed disconcerted but not dismayed.
It only took them four minutes to get the equaliser they needed for the point they required to put the title out of Arsenal’s reach. Salah played a lovely reverse pass to Dominik Szoboszlai, Szoboszlai crossed for Luis Diaz and Diaz slid it home.
This is not the greatest Liverpool title-winning side there has ever been, but there is something imperious about it. It can look the greatest teams square in the eye
The acrid smell of the plumes of flare smoke seemed to turn the sky around Anfield crimson
Some have sought to damn Slot’s achievement in his debut season in English football with faint praise. That is a mistake. Those who expected Liverpool to struggle have been confounded
Liverpool’s nerves settled. Now they let loose. Alexis Mac Allister who lashed a rising drive high into the net from the edge of the area to put Liverpool ahead, Cody Gakpo added a third and when Salah drilled in a fourth midway through the second half, it elicited the loudest cheer of all and that request for a selfie.
Salah nearly had another but Destiny Udogie got to the ball before him and turned it into his own net to put Liverpool 5-1 up.
‘Champions,’ the Liverpool fans sang, ‘champions, champions.’ Over and over and over again. And on the touchline, as the Kop broke into one last rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone, Slot made one concession to demonstrativeness. He turned to the crowd and blew someone a kiss.
