What is important this season?

The reactions of football fans intrigue me. Liverpool lost to West Ham on Sunday with a pretty disjointed and disappointing performance but to hear some people, you would think it was the end of the world.

In reality, it was probably the end of our very slim hopes of nicking a Champions League place – if it wasn’t, Chelsea’s win over Man Utd last night surely was – but the odds of us achieving that were so slim that I thought it would take a miracle to happen. Clearly some people got so carried away with our recent good form that they had begun to think of Champions League qualification as ours to throw away. Nonsense.

When you have unrealistic expectations, you are going to be disappointed more often than not. I’ve seen that a lot in recent seasons. When Rafa led us to within a smidgen of winning the title in 2009 only to be robbed by bent officialdom at Old Trafford, people claimed we threw away the title. That season we achieved our record number of points in the Premiership; we achieved the highest total by any runner up in Premiership history; we finished above both Arsenal and Chelsea who had finished 25 and 37 points respectively above us in Rafa’s first season at Anfield just 5 seasons earlier; we scored the most goals and had the best goal difference in the League; we lost the fewest games – fewer than any team that had failed to win the League in Premiership history; we beat Chelsea and Man Utd home and away and absolutely tonked Man Utd at Old Trafford, and we still reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League having battered Real Madrid in the previous round. To some people that wasn’t good enough. To those people this was evidence of negligence and incompetence by our manager.

Those same people deserved what they got when Rafa was sacked and Roy Hodgson was appointed instead. They called Rafa an idiot but were then faced with the shocking reality of a real idiot being in charge at Anfield. Had FSG not sacked Hodgson, I’m convinced he would have relegated us. Thankfully, we got rid before it was too late. It still should have happened sooner in my opinion (to be honest, he never should have been appointed at all) but at least it happened soon enough to give us a fighting chance of finishing comfortably in mid-table.

For King Kenny to then come in and lead us seemingly effortlessly up the table to within striking distance of the top four was way beyond my expectations. When you consider he has done this while having to sell Fernando Torres to Chelsea and hasn’t yet had the benefit of fielding the player signed to replace him, it is even more incredible. He arrested our decline, improved the quality of football on display, reversed our negative goal difference and generally restored the joys and pleasures of supporting Liverpool FC.

After our win against Chelsea, I did dare to dream of us usurping them and stealing the fourth Champions League spot but I knew it was extremely unlikely and that it would have required title-winning form between now and May to accomplish. Realistically, that was never going to happen and it’s clear looking back that what Kenny did was get us winning the sort of games we should be winning – something Hodgson was never able to do. From that winning run in what was essentially a kind set of fixtures - Wolves (a), Fulham (h), Stoke (h) – the team acquired the form and confidence to go and win at Chelsea. However, since then we have returned to the sort of patchy form I expected when Kenny took the job. We were robbed blind against Wigan (h) but deserved what we got at West Ham.

With some tough fixtures remaining, I expect the remainder of the season to be an even mixture of wins, draws and defeats and I expect we will finish around where we are in the table now – 6th or 7th. That remains an impressive achievement given the relegation battle Hodgson left us facing.

The icing on the cake would be a Europa League win. At least that’s how I see it but some fans disagree. There seems to be a large number of Liverpool supporters who think we should focus on the League and field reserve teams in Europe’s secondary competition. I just don’t understand their logic.

What can we achieve domestically this season? The best realistic outcome is that we secure 5th place and seal Europa League qualification for next year – but what is the point if we don’t value the competition when we’re actually in it?

The likelihood is that our best route to qualify for a European competition next season is to win the one we are currently playing in.

However, next season is for next season. We still have a chance of winning a trophy this season. Whether you rate the Europa League or not, it is the only competition we can win this season and as such, I consider it to be our number one priority.

Winning trophies is what Liverpool Football Club is all about. In fact, I would go so far as to say winning trophies is what football is all about. Why enter competitions unless you want to win them? Why support the team season after season if you don’t care whether they actually win anything?

Of course I want Liverpool to be challenging for and winning the Premiership and the Champions League but those objectives were beyond us before the first ball was kicked this season. After that, the next priority had to be the FA Cup. Thanks to a twat of a third round draw and a bent performance by Manchester United’s Howard Webb, that was beyond us after just one game. Next priority? For me, the Europa League still has more prestige than the League Cup. In any case, thanks to Hodgson and his master class in motivating “B-team” players, that was also beyond us after just one game.

We can still lift silverware in Dublin in May. The Europa League Final might not have the pizzazz of the European Cup Final but we are currently light-years away from even having a chance of playing in that one. While we rattle around amongst the also-rans waiting for our time to come again, wouldn’t it be better if we could pick up the odd trophy along the way?

Let me put it another way, what do the following players have in common: Arbeloa, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Kyrgiakos, Aurelio, Mascherano, Lucas, Benayoun, Kuyt, Rodriguez, Riera, Babel, Keane and Torres? Answer: All of them won or have won nothing with Liverpool FC (excluding the Community Shield in Agger’s case). Kuyt and Aurelio have been with us for five seasons. Mascherano and Arbeloa joined the same year. Torres, Babel, Benayoun, Lucas and Skrtel all joined the following season. Johnson, Kyrgiakos, Rodriguez, Riera and Keane joined after. After our Champions League Final defeat in Athens, we’ve come close to reaching another Champions League Final, a Europa League Final and just missed out on a League title but we’ve failed to add to our collection of silverware.

Keane, Arbeloa, Benayoun, Riera, Mascherano, Babel and Torres have all been and gone leaving us with no memories of them parading trophies.

Champions League football is important to keep existing players happy and attract new ones but that alone is not enough. Above all else, players want to win medals. They want to be raising trophies as ticker tape rains down around them and supporters laud them as heroes.

Yes, the Europa League is a second-rate competition. Yes, it is less prestigious than the UEFA Cup was when we last won it in 2001. Yes, it was not our first priority at the start of this season and won’t be at the start of next season (assuming we qualify). But it is the only chance we have of celebrating with our team on the last day of our season.

For the departed players it is too late to win a trophy but for the likes of Carroll, Meireles and Kelly, what a way to start!