From the Pre-Match Thread by GrobbelRevell:
Second place. Tongue-in-cheek or otherwise, Shankly once famously described it as “nowhere”, and yet for both clubs, given their fluctuating form in recent seasons, it will represent tangible progress and a further step towards where both ultimately aspire to return as seasons eventually come to be dissected. Not only that, but it, to steal a cliché, lays down a marker for next season as being the foremost challenger to Manchester City’s seemingly relentless pursuit of dominance.
In other words, it matters. Perception of trajectory is significant as you find yourself browsing a boutique with limited stock come a summer dominated by the World Cup, alongside several of your rivals. It matters when you want those key targets to choose you over them, and even more so when you have a manager who will not compromise. To be able to point at an upward trend – 8th to 4th to 2nd, makes a difference. What’s the logical next step, lads? Look at the football. The goals. The increasing balance. Come and walk around Big Fucking Virgil. But more importantly, look at where we’re going with it all. This is a serious football team making serious strides, and our performance and results prove it. Jürgen Klopp isn't messing around. And when the side-note is that you’re head-to-head with them in all of this, well, then it really fucking matters. Nothing as Shankly intimated, is absolutely something in the here and now. Not the destination, but a sign-post on the journey.
We believe we’re the second-best team in this league, I think that’s fair to say. I have a suspicion that if you asked Pep Guardiola he’d highlight Liverpool as the one that concern him most of the chasing pack as well. And yet, as things stand, it’s Mourinho’s United who occupy that position, albeit based largely on an excellent start to the campaign, and in spite of some questionable performances and results in the months that have followed. What they continue to have though, is a collection of excellent individuals assembled at eye-watering cost, capable of turning tight games – games that they often have no right to walk away from with points - in their favour. It forms a large part of the reason why not many results in these fixtures surprise, and that will be the case again this weekend. Neither team can be written off, in their best moment or their worst. In contrast, Klopp's Reds found themselves seven points adrift of their Mancunian counterparts after ten games of this season, having scored six fewer and conceded twelve more. Since October the 22nd and the 4-1 reverse at Wembley however, the German's men have gone on to take 47 points from 20 games. Extrapolate that over a full season and it’s 89-point pace. In that same time period, it’s also five points more than United, nine more than Spurs and ten more than Chelsea. It’s worth noting as well, that across those 20 games, Liverpool have scored the most goals (53), ahead of City (51) in second (and nineteen more than United), whilst simultaneously conceding the joint fewest (16), along with City and Chelsea (and two fewer than United).
The narrative remains that this Liverpool team lacks balance - that it's great going forward, but at the expense of defensive solidity, and yet the growing statistical backlog simply does not support such a conclusion. Quite the opposite. For the equivalent of more than half a season now, this Liverpool team are scoring at a rate that only City can compete with, whilst matching the best in the league defensively. This is one hell of a team that we're watching at the moment, arguably comparable with the best seen at Anfield across the last three decades - and it's improving. They now need to translate that spell-binding, fluid intensity into league finishes, and trophies. To gegenpress Mourinho's collection of stars out of second place this season is a potentially important gate-post towards that, and this fixture offers the opportunity to move ahead of them without the context of any games in hand for the first time this season, as we enter the final ten weeks of the campaign. For United the motivation is similar, of course. Having somehow escaped Selhurst Park unscathed on Monday evening, they'll see this as an opportunity to cement their credentials and put daylight between them and the rest. At least, their fan base will. Whether Mourinho risks playing for a win when a point is sufficient to keep them above us remains to be seen. There will certainly be no gasps of shock if it transpires that he sets up for the latter.
No-one needs a pep talk for this one. It's one of a handful of games that you look for when the fixtures are released each year, because it means more than just three points, irrespective of where either club finds themselves. Getting one over on them matters, even more so when we find ourselves in direct competition towards the top of the league. It's the second week of March and our season remains very much alive, which is something that hasn't been the case far too often in recent decades. A European Cup quarter final on the horizon for the first time in nine years, and a second place finish for only the third time in Premier League history in our hands. This team should be placing no limits upon itself. We should be placing no limits upon our belief in this team. They're really fucking good, you know. Now, let's go and show the country exactly that on Saturday.
Into these, Reds.
