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Season recap
Coming into the season, I was most worried about the loss of Hugo Viana, our injury prone attacking midfielder. It turned out that he had a very brief season for Liverpool, appearing in about 1/4 of the Reds' games while suffering through various injuries. Viana was mostly a non-factor for them. And along our front, newcomer Niko Kranjcar actually had a slightly better season than regular starter Gerard. Jan Karsnak also flashed some brilliance at times from the AMC spot, especially in a substitute role, as the 19 year old ran by the back lines of our opponents quite often... only to fail to finish several open chances. The finishing will come with time.
Michal Jablonski broke through late in the season, helping to fill in for the absent Lebohang Mokoena. Mokoena, who was a revelation early in the season scoring 5 goals, including a hat-trick in European play, broke his leg early in the season, and was out all year until a substitute appearance in the last game of the English season, the FA Cup Final. Jablonski scored 3 goals while starting the final 3 games of the season. He should help ease the loss of talented forward Bosko Balaban.
Thando Mngomeni had a career season, nearly winning player of the year in the Champions League. Carlton Cole would have won top scorer in the Premiership if he had not missed nearly the entire final month of the season with various injuries. Roman Wallner started slow, but came on well to become a consistent contributor up front. While Jesus had a marvelous rookie season at defensive midfield, rendering Mascherano surplus to requirements. Our back 4 was generally good, but the back-ups to the starters were shaky at times, especially on the 2 wings.
We started out the season absolutely on fire, only losing one match in all competitions between early August and mid-November, including 9 straight shutout wins at one point. We levelled off a bit, but lost only 4 games in the league all season, and only 8 games in all competitions (2 in Champions League, 1 in the League Cup, and the Community Shield) out of 60 played in 4 different competitions, and a couple of exhibition matches. Sadly, our offense went into the tank with the loss of Carlton Cole late in the season, but we were able to win the league while struggling home with just 8 points in our final 7 league games.
Overall, this was an extremely successful season, but there is room for improvement. And with the influx of prize money and cash, we should be in a great position to capitalize and possibly become European champions next year.
Could we pull the Quadruple (winning the league, FA Cup, League Cup, and Europe)? It would take depth beyond what we currently have, and an effort of Herculean proportions. But if I'm not going to spend to try and do it now, when will I?
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