I have already written a piece explaining why I don’t think Liverpool will win the quadruple. Manchester City will pile everything that they’ve got into winning the Premier League, with Real Madrid’s defensive structure such that I think Pep Guardiola’s side will breeze past them in their Champions League semi-final. There is a world in which City drop points against a lesser side in the league, but it is one that requires them to take their eye off the ball in a way that I don’t think they’re going to. That is to say nothing about the fact that we have to overcome a very good Villarreal side if we are to even make the final of the Champions League. Even if Real somehow found a way past the Cityzens, they will feel as though they can beat us if we get there, on account of the fact that they did so in 2018. On top of that, there is no question that a Chelsea side that has nothing else to think about between now and the FA Cup final will promise a stern challenge for the Reds.
The odds remain against a quadruple, and if I’m honest, I still think City pip us to the league ala 18/19, but right now we sit mid-April and there’s a real, real chance, still. And that in itself is incredible. What a time to be alive this is. Drink it in.
— Grobbelrevell* (@markbrucerevell) April 16, 2022
With that in mind, then, this isn’t a piece filled with confidence that we will be able to win the quadruple. Instead, it is an explanation of why it is that I think that this Liverpool team deserves to do it. There are many obstacles in our way, up to and including a Manchester United side that will be absolutely desperate to put a dent in our title hopes, even if it is for the benefit of their city rivals. Whilst I don’t think United are any good, with two goals conceded against Norwich City proof that they are defensively woeful, I do worry a little bit about an ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’ performance from Liverpool. We have spent much of the second-half of this season playing in first gear, doing just about enough to do what we’ve needed to do to get the wins on the board. Any let up in the closing stages will see determined sides able to take advantage of any lethargy, which I desperately don’t want to see tomorrow night. So why do we deserve to win the quadruple?
In Any Other Era, We’d Have Won It All
The problem with talking about Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United and comparing it to the modern day teams is that the Scot was a brilliant footballing mind. What I mean by that is that he constantly changed and adjusted his team in order to cope with what was in front of him, so who knows how he’d have coped with Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola as his adversaries. Though City were not the force they are now whilst he was still in charge at Old Trafford, he still won titles during the Sheikh Mansour era, just as he did in the post-Abramovich landscape. Even so, it is difficult to escape the feeling that our German manager would have found a way to get the better of him on a few occasions, had he been at Anfield in the 1990s and 2000s. After all, during his time as the manager of the Red Devils, the most points a Ferguson side notched up was 92, with Klopp’s Liverpool breaking that twice to date and on course to do so again this season, all being well.
Crazy that Liverpool are the first side to have reached the semi-finals of the League Cup, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season #LFC
— Charlotte Coates (@CACoates96) April 18, 2022
United won the title having lost six times on three occasions, doing so with five defeats to their name fives times. When we missed out on the title by a point, we lost once all season. When we won the Premier League for the first time under that branding, we suffered just three losses. This season, we have lost twice. Though we could obviously lose a few more times before the campaign is over, if we do so then we won’t be winning the title. In other words, City and Liverpool are achieving unprecedented levels that would have seen them win title after title during pretty much any other top-flight era. The problem is, we’re not playing in any other top-flight era, we’re playing in this one. Would Ferguson have been able to match what Klopp and Guardiola are doing? It is possible, but not necessarily all that likely. A quadruple has never been done before, but Liverpool deserve it because to win it would put them in the pantheon of all-time great football teams.
They’re Not Fighting On A Level Playing Field
The other big reason I am of the opinion that this Liverpool team deserves to win the quadruple is that we’re fighting on an uneven playing field. Whilst opposition fans would love any of Villarreal, Chelsea or Manchester City to stop us from achieving the unthinkable, that is more because of their own clubs’ inability to be as structurally sound as we are. That sits alongside the idiotic image of Liverpool supporters that many people have in their head, driven by a media narrative that was started in the 1980s. I don’t expect another club’s fans to want us to win every trophy going, but I do think it would be a brilliant thing for football if we did. Chelsea might be in trouble at the moment thanks to the sanctions put on Roman Abramovich, but he changed the face of football when he turned up at Stamford Bridge and began to financially dope the West London club. That has been taken to a whole new level by Sheikh Mansour and the Abu Dhabi group, of course.
Virgil van Dijk says it would be a “dream” for Liverpool to win a historic and “almost impossible” quadruple.#BBCFootball #LFC
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) April 17, 2022
It is insane that Liverpool are even within touching distance of a quadruple when a sports-washing outfit that has invested billions into making it the most competitive club on the planet has failed to achieve it. Let me be absolutely clear: if the Reds finish this season with nothing more than the League Cup to show for their efforts, it will still be a remarkable achievement, when you consider that City should win every trophy they’re in each season that this financial cheating is allowed to take place unchecked. It is the fact that anything other than the quadruple will be painted as a failure in some quarters that means that I want us to win it more than anything. This manager and these players deserve to be remembered as amongst the best of all time, yet they’ve been thwarted in those efforts thus far thanks to a football club that has consistently cheated the system. If we win the quadruple when City couldn’t, that would be the greatest achievement in football history.
