The other love of my football life are Liverpool Football Club, and while the Mizzou Tigers have enjoyed one of their best starts to a season in many years, Liverpool have achieved the exact opposite. Their season had been bedevilled by a long and distracting ownership dispute which lead - eventually - to a new American owner, John W Henry, replacing the much disliked previous American owners - Hicks & Gillett.
The first match under new ownership was the Liverpool derby - against the great rivals Everton at Goodison Park. Liverpool went into that game in 18th place in the Premiership after losing their previous league game to Blackpool at Anfield by 1-2. Liverpool fans well remember the days when we were accustomed to being Champions of England - a role now shared by Manchester United & Chelsea. But for most of the last decade we have at least been accustomed to a top-four placing and regular competiton in the European Champions League. Last season we finished outside the top four and sacked the Manager, Rafa Benitez. 18th placed however is unplumbed depths for LFC.
It got worse - 2-0 to the Toffees and 19th place in the prem. What a nightmare. But now there are signs the team may be turning the corner. Back-to-back premiership wins at home to Blackburn and away to Bolton have lifted LFC to 13th place and a 3w-3l-4d record. We are still a huge - but not impossible - way from European qualification next season but after being one league win from eight starts, there is some small cause for optimism.
Our next start is today in the Europa League Group K where we sit top of a tight group of four teams, the others being Napoli (Italy), FC Utrecht (Netherlands) and Steaua Bucharest (Romania). After round robin, two teams will advance to the next stage, to be joined by 22 other teams from Europa Groups A-L and another eight teams falling out of the European Champions League. 3 points today would give a little breathing space atop Group K, but things are likely to remain tight.
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