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Once the undisputed kings of England, Liverpool were absolutely dominant in the 1970s and 1980s. Legendary players like Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Steve Grobbelaar, Alec Lindsay, Alan Hansen and John Barnes under the management of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, and Joe Fagan helped Liverpool win multiple European and domestic titles during this period.
Times have changed, however, and the Kop has lost its swagger. It's been 28 years since the league title was last won by Liverpool (only six senior players in the current team had been born the last time Liverpool won the league), and The Reds have been overtaken by Chelsea and Manchester City in the English football hierarchy.
There have been near misses in that intervening period, most notably in 2014, when an inspired Suarez helped the club lead the title race until a Gerrard slip cost them.
Jurgen Klopp's arrival at Liverpool in 2015 from Dortmund has helped revive the club's fortunes a bit. He has brought back the big club feel to Anfield, which had been sorely lacking in recent years and has made the fans believe once more in their club.
While there has been undeniable progress under Jurgen Klopp, there have also been hindrances, particularly those caused by inexplicable errors by players.
Liverpool has been one of the busiest clubs in the European transfer market, as Jurgen Klopp seeks to build on the gains made under his stewardship and mold Liverpool into genuine title contenders.
With improved competition in the Premier League, winning the title is not going to be a stroll in the park for any team. However, Liverpool has what it takes to ride the storm and end their fans long wait for league glory.
Here are three reasons why Liverpool could win the Premier League next season.
#3 The arrival of Alisson Becker
Jurgen Klopp sanctioned the purchase of Brazil international goalkeeper Alisson from Roma in a world record £67m deal.
While eyebrows were raised over the figure for a goalkeeper, the truth is that the amount of money available to clubs means that such figures will become commonplace, and there's nothing we can do about that. Moreover, that is beside the point.
The goalkeeping area was one aspect that had given Klopp a lot of headaches over the last three years. Neither of his first-team goalkeepers could find any sort of consistency meriting the first choice goalkeeper of a top European club.
Both Simon Mignolet and Lorius Karius took turns in committing laughable schoolboy gaffes, leading to numerous dropped points in the league for Liverpool. If league errors were not bad enough, each also had their horror moments in cup final games with Mignolet costing Liverpool in the League Cup final against Man City in 2015, while Karius infamously handed Real Madrid two goals in the Champions League final only two months ago.
Alisson's arrival will help address that, as he is an extremely confident goalkeeper, who can be depended upon to bail his team out with world class saves, coupled with the marked improvement of their defense since Virgil Van Dijk's arrival.
It is a known fact that title-winning teams are mostly built on having a good goalkeeper, and Alisson is as good as they get, being referred to as the 'Messi of goalkeepers' by Roma Sporting Director Monchi.
A world-class goalkeeper could pull off saves worth at least 10 points in a league season, and those saves could be the difference between achieving the season's objectives and failing to do so.
In Alisson, Liverpool finally has a dependable goalkeeper to aid in their title-winning quest.
#2 Favorable record against Man City and the big teams
Since Klopp's arrival at Anfield, Liverpool has constantly challenged and gotten the better of the big clubs in England, particularly Manchester City.
It was Liverpool who halted Manchester City's winning run last season with an emphatic second-half performance in a 4-3 home win, while they also ended their Champions League campaign with a 4-1 home and away aggregate victory over the Citizens.
Liverpool turns up their performance levels against the big sides, and this could be key in seeing them win their first league title in 28 years.
Manchester City is undoubtedly the favorites to retain the league title next season, after their emphatic performance last season, but Liverpool have done well against them in recent years, and Klopp has a very impressive head to head record against Pep Guardiola (winning 8 and drawing 1 out of 14 matches played).
If The Reds can maintain this record against the big teams, while effectively seeing off the smaller sides in the league (which has proved to be their Achilles heel), then Klopp could write his name into Liverpool folklore by managing the club to its first ever Premier League win.
#1 The form of Salah and their front three
In an unexpected narrative at the beginning of last season, Salah had one of the greatest debut seasons in Premier League history, seemingly breaking records every week as he banged in goal after goal.
Salah set a plethora of Premier League records including for most goals scored in a 38-game season and most goals scored by a Liverpool player in his debut season. He was deservedly named PFA and PWA Player of The Year among other personal awards.
The 25-year-old Egyptian scored a total of 44 goals, helping Liverpool to a 4th place league finish and a spot in the Champions League final.
Salah, however, is just the headline act, the protagonist of a brilliantly talented Liverpool attack. Klopp's genenpressing style of football is suited to the abilities of Salah, and together with Sadio Mane and the grossly underrated Roberto Firmino, form one of the most potent attacking trident in world football.
The trio scored a whopping 91 goals between them last season, as defenses found it difficult to contain their brilliance. Firmino was the selfless runner, constantly drawing back to drag defenders out of position and create spaces for his teammates to explore.
Mane used his trickery and speed on the wings to devastating effect, while King Salah was downright unplayable at times, embarking on Messisque mazy runs en route scoring goal after goal. The 'terrific three' will come in handy once more next season.
The signing of Xherdan Shaqiri will also prove a useful addition off the bench (as his terrific overhead kick against United showed) and if this attack can show the kind of form it did last season, then Liverpool might find themselves walking together with the Premier League title in hand come the end of next season.
