By Mohammad Zaki Gundagi
The number 3 is being thrown about a lot by Liverpool fans this start of the season.3 games, 3 wins, 3 goals by Sturridge and 3 clean sheets by Mignolet have led to Liverpool being at the top of the table this international break. My interest on the other hand is more in the number 6 and its significance over the coming days.
6, you see are the number of premier league games that separate Liverpool’s visit to the emirates. Before we take on our top 4 rivals we have our games against Swansea, Southampton, Sunderland, Crystal palace, Newcastle united and West Bromwich Albion respectively.6 I feel is enough a number of games to decide everything from our form, teamwork, attacking prowess, new signings, passing and defensive abilities. It will however more importantly indicate our will to win and not drop points against such teams as we did last season.
Let us look a year back and try to play the number game. We played 10 matches with our 6 opponents(Crystal Palace just got promoted ).In that, we lost 3 (West Bromwich Albion [3-0,2-0] and Southampton[3-1]),won 4 (Swansea[5-0], Southampton[1-0], Sunderland[3-0] and Newcastle [6-0]) and drew 3 (Swansea[0-0], Sunderland[1-1] and Newcastle[1-1]). We earned 15 points out of a possible 30 and were 12 points away from getting a top 4 finish. We scored a total of 15 goals and conceded 7 resulting at a goal difference of 8.
Let us look at those teams now. 2 of them are currently in the relegation zone( Sunderland[19th], West Bromwich Albion[20th]) having just a point each, Swansea and Crystal palace occupying 16th and 14th place with 3 points and Newcastle and Southampton with 4 points sitting at the 12th and 10th position respectively. Not one of them is in the top half and I believe not one of them would be on such high of a confidence as we are right now.
However, this high confidence last year played a lot of part in complacency creeping into our sides resulting in losing winnable games like the one at Southampton and the home game to WBA after showing a great run of form in the previous games. I This great run of form should not turn out into another rueful loss or draw, where we lament at the chances not taken and the points not gained.3 victories against 3 teams who defeated us at least once last year should not let our players lose sight of our final goal because last year, whenever we had an upturn of form and looked hopeful of getting higher up the table, some team or the other were there to always break our momentum. Let it not happen this time while both the fans and players are so full of confidence and hope when we have a team with a striker on red hot form, a keeper who has done no wrong, 8 new additions and retaining our star.
Sincerely hoping that this team keeps its head on its shoulders and win the games they are supposed to win so that maybe just maybe we fans will get to see this year finally being our year.
YNWA