The summer is lost in the haze created by too many beer drenched BBQs and late, warm nights. Not that summer lasted long for the Mighty Reds who had to ditch their tour of Japan to start qualification proceedings for the next Champion's League campaign due to a dissapointing 5th place in the previous Premiership. Wrexham, Leverkusen and maybe one or two more friendlies surrounded games in the first round against TNS (famous for the line "They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions") who provided little more than token opposition for us as we marched univentfully to the groups, while Everton couldn't get past Villareal, which lended a certain edge of gold to our qualification (though images of Tim Cahill on the opening of SSN bulletins still hurt).
But before all of this, we had the usual transfer rubbish which could quite easily occupy a couple of hours and several thousand words, so I'll cut this bit down to size and try to be as concise as possible. Dudek's heroics in against Milan in the European Cup final looked to be his last actions for the club, just as it had for Baros and Smicer who had already sought out pastures new. Jose "Pepe" Reina was introduced and he came with an excellent reputation, as did Momo Sissoko who had been one of Benitez's long-term projects.
We all wanted three things in the summer. A striker, a right sided winger and some cover for Sami and Jamie at the back. Michael Owen was lost and unwanted at Madrid and it seemed certain that he would do a Rush and come home. And he did. For an hour. And then he went to Newcastle. We were left licking our wounds and questioning Rafa's ideas, especially after he had brought in the one man freak show that is Peter Crouch. Crouch cost £7million and it appeared that Rafa was doing a Houllier and spending too much money on strange choice. We would have to wait a while to get a first glimpse of him, though not as long as the wait to see Mark Gonzales who wasn't allowed to play for us, even though he'd signed. Crazy.
A right winger never came due to Rafa's refusal to be conned out of big cash by Benfica over Simao. And the cover for our centre-halves never came, which meant another season with the often donkey-esq Djimi Traore. And thus the season began.
The decision not to sign Michael Owen immediatly looked a poor one, as for several league games, we just couldn't score. We weren't conceding, but we weren't scoring and that meant the difference between 3 points and 1. Not the best start to the season, which was compounded when Chelsea turned up and after trying to rob Gerrard from us in the summer (I think I blanked that whole scenario from my memory. Can you blame me?) they thumped us 4-1 at Anfield. That hurt. But the less I talk about Chelsea, the better I feel.
By this time we had started to win a couple and a draw against Man Utd was adequate. We'd also embarked on another European campaign, drawing Anderlecht, Betis and, much to everyone's annoyance, Chelsea, who we drew with twice and qualified above.
Domestically, things had gone from OK to good and even really good at times. We didn't lose in 17 games, most of which were wins. Crouch had broken his duck and although the strikers weren't firing on all cilinders, Gerrard et al were chipping in and we kept about 9 clean sheets (if memory serves) in a row. We got cheated out of the World Club Championship, having suspiciously won the European Super Cup ourselves and the trip to Japan didn't seem to disturb our flow.
Our league cup didn't go to plan which was probably a blessing in disguise due to the number of games we were having to play and Christmas brought on the usual rush of fixtures.
Despite Alonso scoring one of the goals of the season with a 65ft effort against Luton, the new year brought the inevitable blip after a good January. We recorded a handful of losses, most painful of which for me were the flukey one against Man Utd and a weak performance against Benfica in the Champions League. Our reign was as good as over, and to make matters worse, Momo Sissoko, who was proving to be a diamond in the rough with the potential to become a shining light in the football world, suffered a career threatening eye injury. Our injury bad luck from the previous season seemed to be returning, and thank heaven Momo's injury was not as bad as first thought and I was so releaved to see him return, even if he did look like a bald Edgar Davids.
But January saw some new arrivals too in the forms of Jan Kromkamp, who replaced the largely disappointing Josemi, and Danny Agger who was the bright young star of Danish football. What's more, Rafa's decission not to sign Owen was vindicated when the striker suffered a bad injury against Spurs, though Bolo Zenden was in an even worse situation.
We notched up some good wins and were leaving Arsenal and Tottenham in the dust as we climbed the table. We even knocked Man Utd out of "their cup" which was very sweet after their dodgy win over us in the league.
Since then, not much has really gone on in our league campaign, being secure in the CL spots for so long and all. And we had to sit and watch as Arsenal and the others fought it out over our European crown. But the FA cup has proved to be this years hope, and having knocked out Fergie's boys, Moureen's lot fell in spectacular fashion so that we now await a final showdown with the Hammers.
So, as agreed at the top of this retrospective, nothing other than a treble was ever going to top last year, but how has this year faired? Not bad. Good in fact. Ok, we are still off the pace in the league, but the gap is halved on last season and we have started to win those games that can prove tricky. We need more strike power and a right winger, though as usual Stevie has stepped in and done brilliantly, and Crouch has proved a revelation up top who is crying out for a twenty-a-season man to play alongside. We've kept more clean sheets than everyone else and look completely solid throughout the side, we just NEED a goalscorer who can take itto the top sides.
The FA cup is there to be won and we are favourites (though so were Milan) so we must take care and do the job properly. And though I know I'll be, to say the least, upset if we lose it, but in the grand scheme of things, even without silverware we have got better and this season is an improvement on the last. Rafa's really got a feeling for the English game now and next season is looking bright. Can No.19 be too far away? Things are looking up.
p.s. please excuse spelling error, but i've been gawping at this screen for about 5 days now and I only see in 2D now!
