Spoiler

Steven Gerrard explains how close Liverpool were to the title

The foundations of the new “this is our year” argument emerge

This time last year you couldn’t move for Liverpool fans claiming that if they had beaten Manchester United twice they would have won the league – flawed logic considering Chelsea and Arsenal would still have finished above them.

Over the past 12 months they have done the double over the champions – overcoming Chelsea twice too for good measure – yet have still come up short. Luckily, Steven Gerrard has provided a new “what if” scenario to keep optimism high on Merseyside for next season:

“Looking back at those three draws on the spin at home in December, they are key because if we had turned them into wins, we would be champions or at least still in the race with one game to go.”

The Liverpool captain is right that the dropped points against Fulham, West Ham and Hull impacted on their title bid but no moreso than their late winners against Middlesbrough, Manchester City, Wigan, Chelsea, Portsmouth and Fulham did. Without those, they would be fighting with Arsenal for third.

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