Liverpool aim for third consecutive victory this weekend – but just how important is a winning start?
Should Brighton be beaten at Anfield on Saturday, Liverpool will have won their first three games and inevitably research will follow, a hunt for clues as to what the future might hold
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Your support makes all the difference.Roy Evans, the former Liverpool manager, tells a story about the time he went to Maine Road as a junior member of the fabled Anfield Boot Room staff. Liverpool had eased past Manchester City and after the game, as the coaches milled around in the corridors discussing what had happened that day, it struck Evans how much listening he was doing and how much whining about the regime under Tony Book was happening from those supposedly working beside him.
He also remembers Joe Fagan brutally intercepting the conversation by advising the complainants that it would be fairer to let the City boss know about their grievances. “It indicated that all was not well over there,” Evans reflected with typical understatement. “Nobody at Liverpool would ever dream of speaking out of turn about a fellow co-worker to an outsider.”
The year was 1978 and this weekend will mark the 40th anniversary of that 4-1 away victory. A significant date and a coincidental opponent, perhaps, because not since have Liverpool opened a campaign so encouragingly before securing a title and if it does somehow happen this season, there is a sense it will be at City’s expense – a club that has travelled far since an era where they gained a reputation as being one of the most chaotic in the country.
Should Brighton, indeed, be beaten at Anfield on Saturday, Liverpool will have won their first three games and inevitably research will follow, examining the last time this happened: what came next and where it led – a hunt for clues as to what the future might hold.
On his introduction at Liverpool nearly three years ago, Jürgen Klopp stressed that a club’s past can be like a rucksack that is continuously heaved around. Considering the time since their last league championship, maybe Liverpool’s currently weighs 29 kilos.
There is a tendency, however, to talk about Liverpool’s history as if it is a chronicle of unbroken success when the reality is far from being absolutely glorious. Liverpool have competed in the top flight 103 times and in the eighteen seasons where they have won the title, only twice has maximum points from their opening three fixtures later resulted in them earning what Bill Shankly would describe as “the real bread and butter.”
That other season, in addition to 1978/79, started around this time 118 years ago.
Since 1990, this sequence of positive starts Liverpool has been accomplished on four occasions and only once did it take them close to where they aspire to be.
Maybe 1990/91 should not be involved in the considerations here because of its proximity to the achievement of the previous campaign. Liverpool were on a roll that autumn, winning an unprecedented eight games in a row. They did not lose until early December but by February, Kenny Dalglish had resigned – a decision nobody had predicted – and they ended up second.
In 1993/94, victories over Sheffield Wednesday, Queens Park Rangers and Swindon included ten goals but Graeme Souness would not avoid the sack and an eighth-place finish represented their lowest under the lights of the Premier League.
Though Liverpool would go one better by scoring eleven the next season against Crystal Palace, Southampton and Arsenal, they were fourth come May-time, fifteen points behind Blackburn Rovers. Meanwhile, three 1-0 wins under Brendan Rodgers in 2013/14 did not hint at subsequent flamboyance. Nevertheless, 101 goals – their most in the top flight – was not enough to outdo City under Manuel Pellegrini when and where it mattered.
Beginnings, then, have not always given accurate indication into what the conclusions might be. In 1905/06, Liverpool would endure their worst start ever, losing 3-1, 3-1 and 5-0, before recovering their composure to become champions, while contrastingly they would win three in three in 1969/70 (and eight of their first ten) before a watershed moment at Watford in the FA Cup where Shankly would decide that Tommy Lawrence, Ron Yeats and Ian St John were no longer good enough to play in a team that came fifth.
A few weeks ago, Klopp was emphasising again that the only thing that he can influence is the here and now. And yet, his assertion does not render any potential victory over Brighton as entirely irrelevant merely because of where it hasn’t led that often in the past.
City smashed eleven Premier League bests last season – the most significant of which is surely the 19 point gap between themselves and the second placed side. Most relevantly, they have already set the pace this month with a record that even at this early stage is better than Liverpool's. It shows that Klopp's team remains a challenger and one that will have to find a way to not only start well and finish well but do very well in between too.
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