Liverpools 2009/10 Season – One to Forget

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The Liverpool football club season in 2009/10 was not quite the calamity that some think, but for a club with the fantastic history of Liverpool, finishing out the top 4 of the Premier League and therefore missing out on Champions League football next season is very disappointing. Throughout the season we played well on occasion but we were horribly inconsistent. The league results record is Won: 18. Lost: 11. Drew: 9. Win percentage: 47%.. On the basis of those results, Rafa Benitez’s time at Liverpool is rightly finished. The form at Anfield was fairly good (winning 13 out of 19 games), however it was the away form that really mad the season a poor one only five games won away from home. The season started badly at White Hart Lane, as we lost 2-1. Spurs deserved the victory but we were annoyed as it seemed a clear penalty was turned down late on when Vorovin was brought down in the box. A gift for Spurs fans. The rest of August was a fairly mixed one. An easy victory at home to Stoke saw an excellent debut from youngster Daniel Ayala at centre half. This win was then followed by a home loss to Aston Villa. A hard fought away win at Bolton saw Liverpool come from 2-1 behind to take the game thanks to a Stevie Gerrard volley. The month of September offered three easy games against Burnley, West Ham and Hull and Liverpool managed to win all three. But October was much harder, with two away loses at the hands of Chelsea and Sunderland. The second of these loses saw one of the freakiest goals ever. Darren Bent’s first shot deflected of an inflatable beach ball that had been thrown onto the pitch by a Liverpool fan. Those loses accompanied by two in the Champions League did not Liverpool confidence going into the Manchester United match. Fortunately for us we bounced back in style with one of our best league performances of the season. Liverpool battled hard and won 2-0. This was supposedly the result that would finally kick start our season, but the next week we were beaten 3-1 away at Fulham. November was another mixed month which started with an extremely frustrating draw on a Monday night against Birmingham City. Glen Johnson proved once again how useful he can be offensively by being a thorn in the Birmingham defence’s side all night, but it wasn’t enough. Then there was a frustrating draw to Manchester City at home. Then came one of the few highlights this season. The Merseyside Derby at Goodison park which we won 2-0 thanks to a deflected Mascherano shot and a goal from Dirk Kuyt. A mixed start to December saw us draw again at the hands of Blackburn which was followed by a poor defeat against Arsenal at Anfield. We played OK in the first half but the second got off to a bad start with a Glen Johnson own goal followed by an excellent Arshavin goal. Livepool looked totally void of ideas in a very disappointing second half performance. Over Christmas we were comprehensively beaten by bottom of the league Portsmouth in probably our worst performance of the season. But, the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 were a positive one, bringing about our best unbeaten league run of the season of seven games. The performances were showed a lot of character as we battled hard. 2010 started with a battling performance away at Stoke City after our calamitous FA Cup exploits. A lapse of concentration at the back let in Robert Huth to score a last minute equaliser. We then won the size pointer against Spurs, our fellow top four competitor. A 2-0 win over Bolton at Anfield ended the month of January before the return Merseyside Derby. This game at Anfield was full of hard tackling, however our in-form Greek centre half was sent off for a two footed tackle, though he did win the ball. Our derby specialist Dirk Kuyt did it again by getting his head on the end of a Steven Gerrard corner to set up a well deserved win in what was an excellent battling performance. After losing 1-0 at the Emirates we headed to Manchester City for another crunch game against a fellow top four rival. It wasn’t much of a spectacle but more of a tactical battle with both Managers’s unsurprisingly scared to lose and a draw duly followed. A comfortable 4-1 victory over a poor Portsmouth side came before a trip to the mighty Manchester United. With United still in the hunt for a fourth consecutive title and our ambitions for a top four finish still intact (just), all was to play for. A great start from us saw Torres left the Liverpool fans jubilant for about ten minutes when . United were awarded a controversial penalty which Wayne Rooney converted on the recoil after a fine initial stop from Reina. We never really got going in the second half and after Park Ji-Sung put Manchester in front on the hour we never looked like getting back into the game. With seven games to go we knew we couldn’t afford many more slip ups if we were to finish inside the top four. A 3-0 win over Sunderland inspired by a wonder strike from Torres and an excellent display from Steven Gerrard was unfortunately followed by an poor 1-1 draw against a very resilient Birmingham City team. Our next game was a potential Europa League final preview against Roy Hodgson’s Fulham side. This result for me finally killed our chances of a top four finish. Fulham played for the point and that is exactly what they got due to some good defending, good goalkeeping and a lack of creativity in the final third from a disappointing Liverpool side. Three Liverpool goals against a poor West Ham side was followed by a flattering away win at Turf Moore that relegated a spirited Burnley side. Our hopes of finishing in the top four were over when we lost to future champions Chelsea at our final league game of the season at Anfield. The award for goal of the season definitely went to Fernando Torres’s stunner against Sunderland at Anfield. Special mentions go to Ryan Babel for his strike against Lyon and Javier Mascherano’s against Unirea. The player of the season for me is Fernando Torres, for his goal scoring record. It feels to me like he has barely played this season yet he’s still scored 21 goals. Javier Mascherano also did well this year, here’s hoping he’s still wearing a red shirt next season. Reina has been without a doubt our most consistent player. A world class player who has kept us in games this season with some fantastic saves. A mark of a great goalkeeper is that you make the hard stuff look easy and Pepe Reina certainly does that. A great goalkeeper and a fantastic character. With Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres struggling for form and fitness, Reina has emerged as Liverpool’s leader on and off the pitch. On the pitch we’ve been too predicable and timid at times. Injuries have been a big problem, however the players that we still had useable should be able to perform a lot better. Liverpool’s woes this campaign were summed up in the season’s most farcical moment, losing to a bright red inflatable – and Sunderland, sort of – at the Stadium of Light. Next season lets hope that Benitez’s successor can do better.

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