{"id":1814,"date":"2020-06-26T12:13:06","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T12:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=1814"},"modified":"2020-06-26T12:13:06","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T12:13:06","slug":"liverpool-football-club-champions-of-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/liverpool-football-club-champions-of-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool Football Club: Champions Of England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty Years. The Reds have a won a lot over the course of those thirty years, from League Cups to FA Cups, UEFA Cups and European Cups. The only thing that escaped our grasp was the league title, but we don\u2019t need to worry about that any more. Thirty years in which we\u2019ve lost loved ones and seen new arrivals come into our lives. Thirty years when the pain of missing out on titles was alleviated by watching us win every other trophy there was to win. In the decades to come, people won\u2019t talk about Covid-19 or the lockdown. Null and voiders will fade into the distance and the only thing people will talk about is how incredible this Liverpool team was. For those of us living through it, we\u2019ve been able to watch greatness. Whether you\u2019ve been in the ground or simply watching on screens all around the world, you\u2019ve been part of something really special. Of course others will try to play it down, but they won\u2019t succeed.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thoughts to every Liverpool fan who is thinking of someone they\u2019d love to be celebrating this league title with but didn\u2019t get to see this day finally come.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Michael Christie (@mikeycLFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mikeycLFC\/status\/1276281307652333571?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 25, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There have been countless Liverpool players and managers that have deserved to win a league title over the years but haven\u2019t. Roy Evans, Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard; they\u2019re just a few of the names that pop into my head when I think about it. Yet I genuinely struggle to remember a squad who, virtually to a man, were so deserving of winning that first Premier League title. Ok, Dejan Lovren\u2019s got some questionable beliefs and he isn\u2019t exactly everyone\u2019s favourite player, but he\u2019s contributed to creating the club we know and love now. As for the rest of them, they\u2019re all brilliant personalities and they totally get what the most important man of them all has been trying to do. J\u00fcrgen Klopp arrived at Anfield and told us all to turn from doubters to believers. It took some people longer than others, but we\u2019re all believers now. Current European champions. Current world champions. Current Premier League Champions. Liverpool.<\/p>\n<h2>Soak It All In<\/h2>\n<p>I\u2019ve seen lots of Reds shy away from the idea of an asterisk being added to discussions of Liverpool\u2019s achievement this season, but I\u2019m not one of them. An asterisk is used to denote additional information being available and, whether we like it or not, there is additional information that future generations will need to be told about this campaign. The key thing, though, is that none of that information in any way belittles what the club has achieved. The circumstances in which the Reds have returned and done enough to be crowned champions have made it a tougher thing to achieve, not an easier one. The manner in which we took apart Crystal Palace, relentlessly pressing them and chasing down every ball even when we were four goals to the good, showed that these lads were taking nothing for granted. Put an asterisk next to the title and let people know that it was won by one of the best Premier League teams ever.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A night that will live long in the memory for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LFC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@LFC<\/a> &#x1f3c6;&#x1f973;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LFC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/bbcfootball?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#bbcfootball<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZbBfo5t2wA\">pic.twitter.com\/ZbBfo5t2wA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCMOTD\/status\/1276454990966452225?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 26, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The coming days and weeks will see more and more footage of last night emerge, to say nothing of a chance for us to watch Liverpool in action a few more times. Enjoy these moments and soak them up. Speak to family and friends and recount how you went about watching the Reds become champions of England. This is what we\u2019ve all been waiting for. I\u2019m 37 and I can\u2019t claim in all honesty that I really understood what football was all about the last time the league championship headed to Anfield, but I know what it\u2019s all about now. Football has been a constant for me, through the trying times and the good. I\u2019ve been a constant for Liverpool, when things were going badly as much as when they were going well. I feel privileged not only to have watched the Reds win the title, but to be part of what is going to come next. Enjoy every moment in the coming weeks and months, because we\u2019ve all very much deserved it.<\/p>\n<h2>What\u2019s Next?<\/h2>\n<p>Speaking to Sky Sports about what it was like when he won a league championship, Graeme Souness recalled Ronnie Moran putting a box of medals on the table and saying to the players, \u201cPick one if you think you deserve it\u201d. The way \u2018Mr Liverpool\u2019 acted back in the 1970s and 1980s was to constantly keep the players hungry and I can imagine J\u00fcrgen Klopp behaving in the same way now. We\u2019ll all have seen the video of the players enjoying themselves in Formby Hall and we might well discover that the German has given his squad a couple of days off now, but when they return to work he won\u2019t let them rest on their laurels. Instead, they\u2019ll all be asking \u2018what\u2019s next?\u2019 The answer, I imagine, will be a plan to continue dominating English and European football for as long as possible. How easy or otherwise that will be may well depend on what happens to Manchester City with the CAS ruling, so we\u2019ll watch that with baited breath.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p lang=\"nl\" dir=\"ltr\">Hahahahah go on Jurgen <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JCrUklxo4T\">pic.twitter.com\/JCrUklxo4T<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Regan* (@regan_lowey) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/regan_lowey\/status\/1276444016305938434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 26, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>City have an ageing squad and it is one that is filled with a number of players that will almost certainly consider their future if they won\u2019t have Champions League football to play next year. It means that I don\u2019t share the confidence of many pundits that the Cityzens will <em>definitely<\/em> be stronger next time out, whilst Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal all have a huge gap to close if they want to get close to us. They\u2019ll need to be exceptional whilst also hoping that we drop off a fair bit, simply to make it competitive. Liverpool winning back-to-back titles isn\u2019t an outrageous suggestion, whilst I would absolutely take us simply continuing to win trophies on a yearly basis, just as Manchester United did under Alex Ferguson, I think this manager and this set of players are capable of defending their crown. That\u2019s for tomorrow, of course. For now, keep saying the following to yourself: Liverpool Football Club. Champions Of England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty Years. The Reds have a won a lot over the course of those thirty years, from League Cups to FA Cups, UEFA Cups and European Cups. The only thing that escaped our grasp was the league title, but we don\u2019t need to worry about that any more. Thirty years in which we\u2019ve lost loved ones and seen new arrivals come into our lives. Thirty years when the pain of missing out on titles was alleviated by watching us win every other trophy there was to win. In the decades to come, people won\u2019t talk about Covid-19 or the lockdown. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1815,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions\/1815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}