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The date was February 22 1991.

For Liverpool Football Club, it was two mornings after the night before – a night on which they had contrived to four times throw away the lead in an FA Cup replay against neighbours and rivals Everton at Goodison Park.

The nature of the goals they had conceded in a dramatic 4-4 draw – defensive lapses at the heart of a traditionally resolute rearguard – had not gone unnoticed, but there remained little to concern the Anfield faithful. A side managed by the club’s greatest ever player, Kenny Dalglish, were defending league champions; they were in a strong position to retain their title; and, of course, they were still in the cup.

“Kenny didn’t show any signs that night, but two days later he resigned,” recalled legendary Liverpool striker Ian Rush some years later. “I think it just happened that morning. We had all come in for training, and were told to meet in the dressing room. Kenny walked in and said he was leaving. It was complete shock and surprise. He couldn’t say too much, but there were tears in his eyes as he spoke.”

In purely football terms, Liverpool has been a club in mourning ever since. Dalglish’s departure precipitated a sharp dip in form from a squad that was to endure almost two months of uncertainty before a full-time successor, the former captain Graeme Souness, was named.

The subsequent FA Cup replay against Everton was lost, while their league championship was eventually ceded to Arsenal in disappointingly tame fashion. More than two decades on, the club that towered over English football throughout the second half of the 1970s and all of the 1980s is yet to win it back.

But is the tide about to turn, finally, back in their favour? Five games into the new Premier League season, and Liverpool sit fifth, just two points adrift of leaders Arsenal. They were top going into last weekend, when Brendan Rodgers and his side suffered the setback of a home defeat to Southampton, but the signs are that this will be as open a Premier League campaign as there has been in its history – an opportunity, perhaps, for the fallen giants to rise.

To fully comprehend the challenge facing the modern Liverpool, it is useful to understand where it all went wrong in the first place. For David Usher, editor of The Liverpool Way magazine and website, Dalglish’s departure represents the point at which Liverpool’s longstanding dominance of the domestic game started to diminish.

“That really set us back at that point in time,” he explains. “Kenny went and we brought Souness in; that didn’t work out, and I wouldn’t say we’ve ever really fully recovered. The Premier League started, which brought with it a new financial aspect, and other teams – especially Manchester United – got a jump on us. They got it right off the pitch, and we didn’t. We’ve never really got back to where we were.”

POWER SHIFT

It’s a fact that causes misery enough among Liverpool fans, were it not to be compounded, as Usher implies, by the Liver Bird being knocked off its perch by a certain rampaging Red Devil. While Liverpool were relinquishing their league title in 1991, Manchester United were following up the previous season’s FA Cup success with victory over Barcelona in the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

Two years later, Sir Alex Ferguson would lead them to a first league title in 26 years. But, we ask, was the shift of power from Liverpool to Manchester mainly about football or finances?

“It was both, really,” says Usher. “It’s all too easy now to say that they’ve just got more money than us, because United have always had money. Even when we were winning titles, they often had the more expensive team. It’s about what you do with the money. Ferguson had a difficult start at the club, but once he got it right on the pitch there was a snowball effect and they became a bit of a juggernaut, which in turn brought in even more money. Because they got it so right off the pitch, in terms of marketing and everything else, they just grew out of our league.”

Under the chairmanship of Martin Edwards, United not only floated on the stock market; with the advent of the Premier League, and the associated growth in marketing potential of English clubs on an international stage, they developed themselves into a worldwide brand capable of generating huge revenues, much of which could be spent on the squad. But as one football giant dragged itself out of an ancient malaise, another was preparing to put itself to sleep with a particularly strong dose of complacency.

“Honestly, I think Liverpool just took things for granted,” says Usher. “It’s often said that Manchester United were run like a global empire, and Liverpool like a corner shop. If we’d have got it right and done it properly, there’s no reason why we couldn’t have made the same success of it. I’d argue that we have just as many supporters around the world as United, but they just did a much better job of marketing their brand and bringing in the money. I believe Liverpool are getting it right now, but you’re talking about a club needing to make up for 20 years of not doing so. That’s not going to happen overnight.”

FALSE DAWNS

Equally, it’s going to take more than four league games unbeaten at the start of a season to convince fans that Liverpool are once more ready to challenge for the honours that came so easily for so long.

The poor display at home to Southampton in the fifth match, followed by defeat at Old Trafford in the Capital One Cup, served only as a reminder that this is a club that has flattered to deceive for more than two decades.

Trophies have been won, most notably in Istanbul eight years ago, but the reality is that the league championship has been little more than a distant flicker on the horizon ever since Dalglish left his beloved Anfield (the first time) in February 1991.

“We went close a few years ago, when we came second under Rafa Benitez,” says Usher of 2008/09, when the team lost only twice and amassed 86 points, yet still fell four short of their old tormentor Ferguson. “But I think the time was under Roy Evans; it was the whole Spice Boy era, we played great football and looked like we were going to do great things. If we could have managed to win a title then [their best finish under Evans was third, twice, while they notoriously finished ‘fourth in a two-horse race’ with United in 1996/97], then you don’t know how things might have turned out.

“But that team always found a way of shooting itself in the foot, and things started to get away from us. We’ve been close, but we’ve never managed a sustained challenge over a number of seasons. To win titles, you’ve got to be doing it year in, year out.”

Study Liverpool’s Premier League finishes in the past two decades, and a pattern emerges: whether under Evans, Benitez or Gerard Houllier in between, the team has shown steady progression building up to something nearing a genuine title challenge.

Both Houllier and Benitez managed to finish second once, before their respective reigns wilted under the strain of not quite returning the club they had come to love to the pinnacle of English football.

The former’s health suffered, while the latter’s departure came during a period of turmoil under the ownership of the American leverage buyout merchants Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The subsequent four seasons have seen Liverpool’s worst run of finishes since the Premier League began.

“Hicks and Gillett must take the bulk of the blame, but a lot of factors have gone into it,” explains Usher. “You can make excuses for him, but towards the end of his time at the club Rafa definitely took his eye off the ball.

“[Former managing director] Christian Purslow has to shoulder some of the blame; Roy Hodgson was not a good appointment and did not do well; and even though Dalglish did well as caretaker, the new owners didn’t want him long-term and felt forced into giving him the job because the fans demanded it. A lot of things have combined, but the majority of the blame for the past four years must lie with Hicks and Gillett. Unquestionably.”

PROBLEMS AT HOME

Hicks and Gillett’s major failing, aside from saddling the club with their own significant debts, was a failure to see through the promise they made on the very day they had their £435m offer accepted by David Moores in February 2007: to build a new 60,000-seater stadium in Stanley Park.

“They thought they were going to come in, borrow more money to build the stadium after borrowing (£185m) to buy the club, and then once the stadium was built they thought they’d be raking it in,” says Usher. “That was the plan, but the cost of steel went up, so the stadium costs went right up, and it got to the point where they couldn’t borrow the money to build it. The debt piled up, and we were paying so much in interest that it got out of hand. That’s where it went wrong. They just couldn’t get the thing built.”

If Liverpool are indeed the sleeping giant of the Premier League, then Anfield – and the club’s protracted inability to either redevelop or move away from it – is the ageing, outdated symbol of its slumber.

While Manchester United have spent the Premier League years building Old Trafford into the 75,000-capacity monster that represents (or at least used to) the club’s huge financial potential, and Arsenal keep the balance sheet healthy with the imposing 60,000-seater Emirates, Liverpool continue to operate from within the four walls of a stadium that holds few more than 45,000 spectators.

While other clubs make huge strides forward, Liverpool appear to be standing still – despite recent claims from owner John Henry and his Fenway Sports Group that the finance is now in place to finally redevelop Anfield.

“Staying at Anfield and expanding is what I wanted us to do all along,” says Usher, lamenting the £49.6m the club wasted on the aforementioned failure to relocate away from their current home.

“Gillett and Hicks said it wasn’t possible, as did Rick Parry and David Moores before them. They all said we needed a new stadium, but this has been going on for so long – and, to me, we’re no closer to a resolution now than we were back then. The owners can say what they want about the finances being in place, but until something actually happens I’ll be taking it with a pinch of salt. We’ve been down this road many times before.”

If Liverpool are to redevelop their venerable old ground, then it is the roads around an increasingly derelict Anfield area – and the few houses that remain inhabited within them – that hold the key. There have long been questions over the club’s long-term project to buy up the properties around the stadium so as to facilitate expansion, and Usher agrees that it remains a controversial issue.

“A lot of the remaining properties are owned by private landlords who know the club is desperate to buy them, so they’re asking for a lot more than they’re worth,” he says. “But then you have people who actually live there, and loads of the houses in the streets are boarded up. It needs to be sorted out, but the club’s attitude is that they’re not going to pay over the odds for what these houses are worth.

“It’s all relative though, isn’t it? They might end up having to do so, but it’s still peanuts compared to the kind of money they’ve been splashing out on players contributing next to nothing. I’m not necessarily talking about players FSG signed, but at the same time they were still paying Joe Cole £90k a week. They’ve got to give these people a decent amount of money so they can find somewhere else to live.”

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

There is no question as to the impact a redeveloped Anfield could have on the fortunes of the team it hosts, but matters on the pitch remain as important as those off it. In that respect, did Liverpool make the most of a summer in which last season’s top three all changed manager, Tottenham sold their best player and Arsenal once more floundered in the transfer market before the late signing of Mesut Ozil?

“This summer was the time for the owners to invest significantly in the playing squad, to take advantage of uncertainty elsewhere, but it didn’t really happen,” says Usher. “They’re not loading the club with any of their debt, which is the main thing, and they have made money available for transfers in the past – but it wasn’t spent well and they’ve since tightened the purse strings. Mamadou Sakho came in for £15m, and Simon Mignolet for £9m, but they’re the only ones who you would say might improve the team rather than the squad.

“We missed out on our really high-profile targets [most notably Henrikh Mkhitaryan, the Shakhtar Donetsk playmaker who instead opted to join Champions League runners-up Borussia Dortmund], and with the players leaving the club I think we ended up with a net spend of £16m. That’s not a massive outlay, particularly as we’re reducing the wage bill.

“The new owners are running the club like much more of a tight ship, and it needs that because down the years we’ve spent ridiculous money on players on stupid contracts. I’m not going to criticise them for that, but then they have all this television money coming in and they’ve just put season-ticket prices up in certain parts of the ground – so nor am I going to praise them from the rooftops for a £16m net spend. They’ve not gone over and above the call of duty.”

LIKING LUIS

Despite a strong start to the season, the depth of the current squad has already been tested – and, at times, found wanting. The shoulder injury sustained by Philippe Coutinho against Swansea left the team desperately short on midfield fluency in the 2-2 draw at the Liberty Stadium, while the loss to Southampton exposed a dearth of alternatives in the full-back areas Rodgers often looks to utilise in attack.

With Glen Johnson injured and regular left-back Jose Enrique struggling for full fitness, Liverpool looked vulnerable in defence and lacked options going forward – something that doesn’t augur well for a genuine tilt at the top four. The return of Luis Suarez could prove timely, at least, and Usher believes the fans will be glad to see him back.

“He seriously annoyed me over the summer,” he says. “Nobody would have had a problem had Real Madrid come in for him and he’d told us he had to go. No one could have blamed him, and we’d have wished him luck. But that he actually wanted to go to Arsenal? It was like, hang on a minute, how much better are they than us? It’s not like he’d have been going there to win titles and the Champions League, is it? For all our problems, we’ve won more trophies than Arsenal in the last seven or eight years.

“I just think he’s not the sharpest tool in the box, and the advice he was given over the summer was horrendous – but the one thing about Suarez is that he only knows one way to play. Fernando Torres was awful for a good 12 months before he left, but Suarez is a street footballer who is genuinely desperate to win – and by now he’s probably desperate to get back playing, too. For now, that can only work in our favour.”

That the team looks set to lean so heavily on a player who spent the entire summer trying to engineer a move away doesn’t smack of an imminent return to the big time. Similarly, Rodgers still looks far too reliant on a spine of players to whom any long-term injury could be catastrophic: Mignolet in goal, the classy centre-back Daniel Agger, talismanic captain Steven Gerrard, midfield anchorman Lucas and livewire striker Daniel Sturridge.

This doesn’t compare favourably with the teams they will need to eclipse in order to secure a top-four spot, let alone win that elusive first league title since 1990. But then, maybe that’s just where Liverpool Football Club is right now – a fact Usher, a man who bleeds redder than most, seemingly accepts.

“I don’t complain too much about the past 20 years, because most fans would kill to have had the success we’ve had,” he says. “Yes, we haven’t won the league, but we’ve still been winning trophies, seen some great football and had some great players. Manchester United went 26 years without winning the title; we may go 26 or more, but we’ve had some great times in between. Winning the league all the time in the 1980s is one thing, but even since the titles have dried up, it’s not like we’ve fallen apart. I don’t think we have too much cause for complaint.”

The Liver Bird is far from back on its perch, then, but there are signs that the sleeping giant is slowly rising from its slumber. One eye is partially open, and the fire within still burns.

David Usher is author of Like I Say: The Story of the 2012-13 Season available from amazon.co.uk