Three years ago Liverpool finished the 2008/09 season in second position, a mere four points behind champions Manchester United who with that triumph equalled the Anfield club's record of 18 league titles. It was a bitter defeat for the club then managed by Rafael Benitez, as they had scored more goals and lost fewer games than United, as well as emphatically beating them 4-1 in their own backyard. Yet things still looked up for the Reds, with players like Pepe Reina, Javier Mascherano, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres forming a formidable spine to the team and hopes were high of eclipsing their Mancunian rivals in the near future. Since then Liverpool have finished 7th and 6th in the league, not appeared in the Champions League since a meek group stage exit in winter of 2009, sacked both Benitez and his successor Roy Hodgson and currently languish in 8th, 34 points behind their rivals from up the M62.
In the interim, United have lost Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez to transfers and Gary Neville and Edwin Van der Sar to retirement. Liverpool have sold Mascherano, Xabi Alonso, Alvaro Arbeloa and Torres among some other less integral players. Yet the Red Devils have captured another Premier League crown and are looking good for a 20th, while the Reds, now under Kenny Dalglish, aren't even close to competing for a Champions League spot and are enduring their worst run of league form since 1953/54 - six defeats from seven matches.
How could the plight of the two clubs have varied so much over the past three years? Under Dalglish, Liverpool have spent lavishly on the likes of Andy Carroll (£35m), Luis Suarez (£23m), Jordan Henderson (£20m), Stewart Downing (£20m) and Charlie Adam (£9m). Yet of these only Suarez has truly performed, despite the controversy caused by incurring an eight-match ban for racially abusing United skipper Patrice Evra and the damage this has done to the club's reputation. The question is, why did the club believe it was worth spending so much money on those players in the first place? It didn't take a genius to work out that £35m was far too much for Carroll, and while he has flopped more spectacularly than the biggest of pessimists would have predicted, it was never going to be the wisest of investments. Similarly, Downing and Henderson were hardly being talked about as world beaters in the football community. The truth is, Liverpool paid over the odds for some bona fide average Premier League players.
Undoubtedly, the managerial upheaval hasn't helped the club's fortunes either. It was clear that Benitez had to leave after taking the club from 2nd down to 7th in just one season. However, where exactly he went wrong is hard to pin-point. Upsetting and selling Xabi Alonso is often mooted as a key factor which led towards his departure, yet the Spanish midfielder's departure could not have been solely responsible for the rapid decline in form of the 2009/10 season. His man management skills appeared to have left a lot to be desired, and this could have been a major failure. Roy Hodgson can also be partially blamed for making some spectacularly dud signings such as Milan Jovanovic, Paul Konchesky and Joe Cole. But at least they weren't at the astronomical prices which Dalglish has seen the club pay.
To give him his due, the club legend has brought silverware to Merseyside for the first time since 2006 with February's Carling Cup victory, and may well win the FA Cup too, although Everton and one of Chelsea or Tottenham (both of whom are well ahead of Liverpool in the league table) will have something to say about that. Yet the club's league form is indefensibly bad and perhaps reflects the decline in managerial skills of a man who hadn't occupied a hotseat for eleven years before his return to Anfield last January. His spiky handling of the media may have worked back in the late '80s and early '90s when Liverpool were still top dogs in England, but with his current below-par outfit, Dalglish is becoming somewhat of a laughing stock for the 'angry little man' attitude he displays almost every time he is interviewed.
In contrast at Old Trafford, Dalglish's old foe Sir Alex Ferguson has shown the benefits of managerial consistency and a keen eye for good value transfers. Aside from the strange and inexplicable case of Bebe, Ferguson has shown incredible know-how in the transfer market since Liverpool came so close to pipping him to the title in 2009. The outlays on Antonio Valencia (£16m), Javier Hernandez (£7m), Chris Smalling (£10m) and Phil Jones (£16m) have been indisputably justified. After some questionable performances Ashley Young (£15m) and David de Gea (£17m) also seem to be on their way to justifying their price tags. The squad which Ferguson has assembled has shown incredible strength in depth over the past three seasons; something which Liverpool's squad has failed to do despite clearly being home to exceptional talents like Reina, Suarez and Gerrard. Dalglish has an unbelievably difficult challenge ahead of him if he is to take his club back to within that 4-point distance of United once again. If he is to go further and join them back on his old perch, he will have to improve his squad tenfold. If he fails, he may be gone before his old Glaswegian nemesis, a decade his senior, decides to finally retire.
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