Totally Gold 2013/14: When Liverpool let it slip

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2:53Hello, listener. For the next few months, alongside our regular Totally Football show with you twice weekly, we'll also bring you a special extra series from the vaults, Totally Gold. Yes, now is the summer of our old content, as we relive the lockdown times back in 2020, when no football was on, and we had the chance to review some of the greatest seasons from Premier League's past. Today, here's me, Michael Cox, James Horncastle and Tom Williams looking back in 2020 at a season that had not one, not two, but four teams duking it out for the Premier League title.

3:45It's the sound of happy which you were listening to in 2014 as you came home from that cinema where you've been watching Frozen because that's what people did in 2014 John Wick in 2014 which is quite dark, isn't it? It's one of the great franchises. Anyway, it was a mixed-up time. That much is pretty clear. The world was worrying about Ebola or Ebola. Remember that? While in sport, the IOC had just awarded Tokyo the right to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. Looking forward to seeing how that turns out. Meantime, football was at least enjoying a truly phenomenal finale to the 2013-14 Premier League title race, a race that involved four teams, Arsenal, Chelsea, Jose Mourinho's little horses, Man City and Liverpool, who, after decades of waiting, look set to finally land the title.

4:35Now, Michael, you've written the definitive history of the Premier League, The Mixer. You picked this season out as one of your favourites, tactically. Why? Yeah, I mean, not just tactically, but I think in general, it was just incredibly entertaining. There were so many incredible scorelines between the top sides. I mean, like you say, a lot of people forget that Arsenal were so involved in that race. I think at the end of February, Chelsea were one point clear of Arsenal at the top of the league. And I think through the whole season, where there were 25 changes of lead through that campaign, but Arsenal had been on top more than any other team.

5:08Yeah, I mean, they were top on, I think it was Valentine's Day, midway through February, when they went to Liverpool and lost 5-1, got absolutely destroyed, really. But on top of that, there was some, I mean, really just brilliant games between the title contenders. It was interesting, the position with Liverpool, because their season had begun in anything but the kind of circumstances you'd think would lead to a title challenge. Suarez was banned for five games still. That was from the Ivanovic bite. Yes. And he was also essentially at war with the club. Yeah, I mean, he was desperate to leave.

5:38He was desperate to go to Barcelona. And really, there was a standoff at the training ground where he was essentially banned from Millwood, I think, for a couple of weeks. And I gather it was Steven Gerrard who played a really instrumental role in convincing him to stay. he basically went to him and said, look... Don't let this slip now. Well, that came a little bit later. But if you remember, this was the summer where Arsenal had bid£40 million plus£1 for him. And Gerrard's... What are they smoking? Suarez was trying to force a move to Arsenal. And Gerrard made the point that, you know, Arsenal were roughly on the same level as Liverpool at that point.

6:10He said, stay at Liverpool, have one more really good campaign and you can go to Barcelona or Real Madrid rather than Arsenal. And that's exactly what happened. So yeah, it started with Suarez... Imagine if Luis Suarez had gone to Arsenal. Would they still be in that kind of decline? Presumably they wouldn't have bought Mesut Ozil, who was the player that they went out and got instead. Would that be fair? Yeah, that is right. I mean, it's a funny thing looking back. Arsenal were, you know, the Arsenal fans were wanting a defensive midfielder or a centre-forward or a centre-back and they ended up getting Ozil.

6:39Who can do all three, to be fair. Yeah, and frequently does. But, I mean, even Arsenal's campaign in isolation was very strange because they started the season with a 3-1 home defeat to Aston Villa And the fans were, you know, maybe that was the first game I can remember where the fans had really, really turned on Wenger on the board. And there was, you know, quite a lot of anger in the stands. And then Arsenal suddenly went on a great run and were five points clear by end of November, I think. Well, there were so many interesting aspects from Liverpool's point of view. The transition from Brendan Rodgers kind of avowed possession game, death by football, as he put it, to the counterattacking approach, which took them to that extraordinary finale.

7:18We'll look at how their title challenge panned out in a second, but there was so much else to enjoy in that season. Tom, United were the reigning champions, but they just appointed David Moyes. His contract only just expired last year, didn't it? The six-year contract. The six-year contract. Ed Woodward coming in that summer as well. That was the season when you remember everybody who'd never won at Old Trafford suddenly won at Old Trafford. Including Everton. I mean, some people look back and think, oh, Moyes record, Old Trafford, wasn't that bad with the waist size, but actually it was once he took over it, Manchester United.

7:56That was the one also, do you remember, did they play Fulham? And they made about 700 crosses. Game of all the crosses, yeah. Premier League crossing record. It was also the season of Fulham having three managers, Martin Yeo, then René Merlinstein, and then, drumroll please, Felix Magath and his Magic Cheese. Remember that? Magic Cheese on your knees? Fantastic. Tom, what other memories do you have of 2013-14? Well, it was the first season that I had covered the Premier League in its entirety. I'd moved back from Paris end of 2012. So I was there for quite a lot of the pivotal moments. I remember in particular the Liverpool title running and all the excitement to build up around that and the fans going out to welcome the team bus with the flares and all the rest of it.

8:41And the Liverpool-Man City game, which I know we're going to talk about in a moment, I had not been to a game at Anfield that season prior to that and they didn't have any room for me in the press box. So they put me right at the back of the main stand with all the fans. I was sitting there with my laptop on my lap, feeling a bit conspicuous. And towards the end of the game, it was 2-2. Liverpool are sort of pushing for victory. And I thought, actually, I'm not going to get any work done here. It's very tense. I'll go down to the media room. And when Coutinho scored the goal that gave Liverpool victory, I heard the fans celebrate before I saw it on the TV and it sounded like a train roaring past.

9:17It was incredible. And there was a bunch of Liverpool staff kind of hovering around the media room who celebrated as if they'd seen the goal whereas they were purely just reacting to the sound. And then sure enough, about 10 seconds later it popped up on the TV and we were all up to speed. But yeah, lots of very vivid memories of that campaign. You had André Villas-Boas at Spurs then giving way after a series of massive defeats to Tim Sherwood in his gilet. That was that season. You also had Tony Pulis at Crystal Palace. Premier League Manager of the Year, Tony Pulis at Crystal Palace. Welsh to Welsh there, Tom.

9:50I like that. Game recognised game. Relegation battle was fascinating. You had Pauly Di Canio, who was the first manager sacked that season at Sunderland, Gus Poyot then coming in. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was managing another red-shirted Premier League side, Cardiff City. Just on Di Canio briefly, Charlie very helpfully sent around video footage of the moment Di Canio went to go and sort of communicate with the Sunderland fans after they'd lost at West Brom towards the beginning of the season. And he walks to the edge of the penalty area and then sort of stands there with his hands on his hips. And he's sort of talking to the fans, but obviously he's 30 yards away, so they have no idea what he's saying.

10:26He does this amazing chin-up gesture. He does a chin-up gesture. And then the Sunderland fans are looking at him and a lot of them are just like shrugging, but they can't, like, neither party can communicate with the others. There's this really odd, wordless standoff for about two minutes. To be honest, he just turns tail and walks off. Tom, I prefer it when Di Canio goes over to the France and keeps his arms by his side. So, no, this is true. I actually thought that was a really interesting moment when he went and did that because it was almost like he was reading the reaction of the situation.

10:51Maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but it's almost like he looked at the stands and they weren't applauding. They weren't saying, come on, we'll see you next week. It was almost like he was looking at me, he was like, it's not working here. And he turned around, he was like, that's his moment. That's when he realised it was all over. I mean, Sunderland are a fascinating team at this point if you watch the kind of Premier League years because they always seem to beat Man City. They always seem to beat Chelsea. Then you don't see anything of them for three months and they're in the relegation zone.

11:15Then they keep on sacking their manager and the managers they bring in, Di Canio came out of nowhere. Poirier kind of came out of nowhere. Dick Advocat? I mean, where did that come from? Wasn't this when they had De Fante as their kind of sporting director and they brought back or they signed the South Korean guy who was ineligible and they played him and then they had to settle, I think with the FA, some big fee, some big fine for basically fielding an ineligible player. Am I right? You might be. You might be. There's so many stories about this season. Or is that just the championship manager region that I played myself?

11:49Possibly so. It was also the season that Alan Pardew and David Myler had that headbutt moment. And it was this season where he swore very loudly at Pellegrini as well. Oh, the C word. That's the one, yeah. And it was also the first season that we had goal line technology in the Premier League. Yes. And interestingly, the first goal that was scored using goal line technology was Edin Dzeko's opener in Man City's 4-2 win over Cardiff in January. And that was City's 100th goal of the season in all competitions. So how come it took till January for them to give a goal through GDS? I think it was the first time they were able to say with certainty that had it not been for the referee's watch vibrating, the goal would not have been given.

12:37Wow. Remarkable, remarkable. All right, well, amidst all of that backdrop, we had these four contenders. You didn't have the text messages between Malky McCoy and... Oh, yeah. Well, if you want to mention those, go right ahead. No, it's fine. Yeah. Well, there was a lot of things. A lot to unpick from that campaign. But... The title race of destiny awaited February 2014. as you mentioned, Michael. Liverpool welcomed Arsenal to Anfield and had that incredible opening 20-25 minutes when they destroyed the Gunners. Four goals, just one after the other, and they ended up 5-1 winners. Through for Sturridge, who's on to it.

13:15Sturridge in on goal for four! Yeah, it was an incredible performance, and I think that game of all of them shows the benefit for Liverpool that season that they didn't have European football because not just the fitness, and they were so fresh, but Rodgers clearly worked on game plans throughout the week. And I was reading, I think Stephen Gerrard's autobiography was very interesting about how Rodgers did this because general players don't really like thinking about the opposition too much throughout the week. So Rodgers would kind of, and I guess this is a kind of standard thing, but it was interesting to read in detail how he would do the scouting early doors, he'd formulate his plans and then he'd have very specific training ground drills on the Monday, the Tuesday, the Wednesday, but wouldn't actually speak directly about why they were doing them and how to exploit the opposition until the Thursday and Friday.

14:01I just think having that five-day period to build up to a big game on the Saturday was such a boost compared to the sides who had Champions League and Europa League football. And that game was the perfect example because the way that they kind of almost boxed in Mesut Ozil. And I mean, Ozil's had some dodgy games for Arsenal over the years, but that was a really poor performance from him. They kept on winning the ball off him and just breaking so quickly. I think in behind Monreal in particular, Raheem Sterling was brilliant that day. I think it's maybe the best attacking performance I've ever seen by a striker who didn't score.

14:29because Suarez was sensational and I think hit the bar from a free kick from about 35 yards and assisted a couple of goals but didn't get on the score sheet himself. It was, yeah, I mean, that felt like a real pivotal day in terms of, even though Arsenal were top, it almost seemed to kill off their title hopes then. And Liverpool... Liverpool were fourth at the time coming into that game? Yeah, so, I mean, they made a really late run of it. But then they go on this run of 11 straight wins. Yeah. The penultimate one of which, the 10th in that series, was the 3-2 over Man City, which in your book you describe as one of, or if not the greatest game in Premier League history.

15:07What makes that 3-2 so much more special than, say, all the ones that Spurs have had this season? I mean, one, because it really felt like a title decider, which we hadn't had for a few years at that point. Obviously, Chelsea were still in the mix and would play their part later on, but it really felt like these were the two sides going for the title. And I think when you look at the context of the day, it was just an incredibly emotional day at Anfield because it was bookended by one, the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and the commemoration of that and then by the famous kind of Gerrard moment afterwards.

15:43And then the game in between was just this incredible level of intensity where Liverpool stormed into an early two goal lead. City really seemed out of it at that point. And then in the second half, City just came on really strong. David Silva had this brilliant 10 or 15 minute spell where he put City back in the game. And then Liverpool won it very late through a goal from Coutinho and a mistake through Kompany. And I must say, if you watch that game back, the strange thing isn't just that Kompany made really three errors for the three goals that Liverpool scored. But this is the time where he's playing alongside Martin Di Michaelis.

16:13And Di Michaelis is really seen as this kind of, you know, disastrous, hapless centre-back. And both Suarez and Sturridge basically gang up on Di Michaelis and try and go for him. Di Michaelis actually plays really well and it's Kompany who really lets the side down. And when Coutinho scored that goal, it felt like Liverpool had won the league at that point. And I think when you look at the way that they were speaking afterwards, obviously they said, we've still got to play three games, I think. But they really believed at that point that they had, you know, defeated their nearest challengers and were on the way to the title.

16:43Company. Coutinho! Liverpool lead again! It's 10 out of 10 for Liverpool. It has been a Sunday to remember at Anfield. Liverpool lengthen their lead in the title race Steven Gerrard with tears in his eyes that's what it means

17:06One of the most iconic scenes I think in Premier League history there Steven Gerrard post game against Man City yeah I mean it felt iconic straight away because you saw what it meant to the players and in particular Steven Gerrard and as Michael says we all felt that was going to be the result that would propel them on to win the title But then subsequently what happened against Chelsea in the famous slip, Gerrard's words in that post-match huddle took on completely new meaning and just made it even more of an iconic moment. Absolutely. Well, before that, and the match that Gerrard was saying, you know, next we go to Norwich, this does not slip.

17:41And it didn't. They beat them 3-2 again, funnily enough. Leaving with three games to go, Liverpool five points clear of Chelsea and six of Man City, although City did have a game in hand. And so next up, yes, they're at home to Chelsea.

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19:44This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Olly Kay and the very best football writers around. Destiny awaits. Chelsea had rested the first team because they had the Champions League coming up. And the first off is pretty uneventful, Michael, but then... Oh, and Gerrard slipped and Denver Barr's in here. Out comes Mignolet, but Barr punishes of all people. Stephen Gerrard and the funny thing is I don't think people really realise the extent of what happened in that situation everyone thinks that Gerrard just slipped over but there's a really interesting backstory I think so Gerrard was playing at the time in this deep midfield role which he'd never really played at least not for the previous 15 years he'd started out as a bit of a defensive midfielder he was playing a more attacking role and he was really unhappy with his performances at the turn of the year and went to Brendan Rodgers and said look I don't think I'm really doing it at the moment I need to do something different.

20:43And Rodgers spent a couple of evenings watching a load of tapes of Gerrard's performance. And he said that the thing that he wasn't impressed by, the thing he needed to improve upon, was his head movement when he received the ball. He wasn't scanning the pitch properly. And they agreed that one, he had to work on that, and two, to help him get a better picture of the pitch, he should be brought into this deep role. And so Gerrard's... Why did he have more time to read? Well, because you can see, you know, if you're playing as a number 10 attacking midfielder, you receive the ball with players around you.

21:09If you play a deep role, you can usually glance up and see the pitch ahead of you. So then, once you know that, it's really interesting what Gerrard does in that situation because he receives a pass, I think 15-yard pass from Sacco from the left flank. And he has three looks over his shoulder towards the far side, whoever's on that side. He's clearly about to play a diagonal pass. The third look, it seems unnecessary when you watch your back, but he's clearly got this thing inside him. I've got to scan the pitch all the time. And so the mistake isn't actually the slip. The mistake is that he miscontrols the ball because he's not looking at the ball, he's looking over his shoulder.

21:41The first mistake is the miscontrol. Then he's so desperate to make up for it that he tries to sprint and then slips and then Babar goes through and scores. But I think there's more context than just him falling over. I think there was quite a complex tactical reason for why he was glancing over his shoulder rather than glancing down at his feet. Right. As Tom says, everybody laughed because he said slip. Yes. Ha ha. I must say, I think this game has been the subject of more after-the-fact revisionism than almost any game in the Premier League era. And what you often hear these days is that Liverpool, led by Brendan Rodgers, blundered into Jose Mourinho's tactical trap.

22:23And this very naive team that we knew couldn't defend for butter anyway, threw away the title. Whereas a draw was good enough in this game for Liverpool. Yes, they came out and attacked, but this is a team who only knew one way of playing, a team that had only really come into existence in the January. This wasn't the fruit of years of steady progress like Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool. This was an opportunistic grab for the title, and I don't think there's any other way that Liverpool could have approached this. Knowing that a draw was a good enough result for them, because had they drawn this game and then won their last two games, they would have been champions, I think the way they went about the game was entirely normal.

22:56It wasn't like they went absolutely hell for leather and left massive gaps at the back, And I genuinely think if it's not for that mistake by Gerrard, because up to that point, the first half have been quite even, few chances for both teams. Chelsea's spoiling it. I remember they won a goal kick inside the first 10 minutes and Mark Schforzer was time wasting. And you realised and everyone in the ground realised immediately, OK, we know how this is going to play out. Minutes later, you've got Gerrard having to wrestle the ball off Mourinho to take a quick throw in. I genuinely feel that if Gerrard doesn't slip at that moment, I don't see Chelsea getting ahead without that.

23:28And if Chelsea don't get head, Liverpool don't lose the game. And if Liverpool don't lose the game, they win the title because they don't then go on and collapse at Palace because they're crazily trying to hunt down this supposed goal difference. So, yeah. I mean, just on the time-wasting, supposedly in Mourinho's pre-match team talk, he said to his players, right, first off, I want two bookings for time-wasting, which is great. Brilliant. Well, not picking up a point did, as you say, turn out quite crucial because it left with two games to go, both Liverpool and Man City, on 80 points. City, though, had a better goal difference, nine goals better, which leads us to Selhurst Park, a.k.a.

24:10Cristian Bull, as Liverpool essentially try and recover across this and their final game, Newcastle would be the theory, that nine goal difference in two matches. Yeah, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but I don't think it was beyond them. I mean, Liverpool were beating sides 4-0, 5-0. You look at Newcastle's results, they didn't have Pardew for seven games because he'd headbutt David Myler. They were losing 4-0 every week. And people say, well, you know, Liverpool weren't going to beat Newcastle 10-0. You know, you never get a 10-0 in football. But there's never been a situation really in the history of the Premier League where a side needs to win 10-0.

24:43And you've got, you know, a team who had the two top goal scorers in the entire league against probably the worst defensive team at that point. Plus Raheem Sterling as well coming through. If they'd had to score 10 goals to win the league, and by this point, you know, City had the advantage, so it was immaterial. I think they would have given it a really good go to score 10 goals. So they did at Crystal Palace, I suppose, because they're 3-0 up and they... Yeah, I mean, and Suarez scores the third and immediately goes to get the ball, pushes a defender out of the way and runs back to the halfway line and they were just trying to make up the goals during that time and obviously left the back door open and the fixtures have worked out so that City still had to play their penultimate game on the Wednesday and okay, you can say the games were against West Ham and Villa and you can say, okay, City were always going to win those games.

25:28But this isn't the City of Guardiola. This is a City who, the year before they lost the FA Cup final to Wigan, the year before that, okay, the Aguero moment, but they needed the Aguero moment because they couldn't beat QPR at home who hadn't won away all season. So this was a City side that, I wouldn't use the phrase bottlers, but they weren't the most consistent. They weren't a side who really thrived under pressure. So if Liverpool had just won 3-0, they would have put City under real pressure going into those last two games. And in the end, of course, they didn't. Murray, chance here. Gale, 3-3.

26:04And Dwight Gale, they just have blown Liverpool right out of the title picture.

26:12They've thrown away a three-goal lead in the space of eight minutes. I was at Selhurst Park for that and had probably the most stressful match reporting experience of my life. I was in the Overspill press box at Selhurst Park. You're always there, Tom. Always there, but right at the back, in the worst seats, I couldn't plug my laptop in. We had no video replay screens. The Wi-Fi was dropping in and out. And on that night, the Overspill press box doubled as a kind of unofficial hospitality suite. So there were a bunch of young Palace fans in there knocking back the beers. And as Palace started roaring...

26:44Different kind of Overspiller, I mentioned. Sorry? Different kind of Overspiller. Very different kind of overspill. And as Palace start coming back into the game, they're going absolutely crazy. And I'm trying to make sense of what's happening from the wrong end of the pitch to where the Palace goals are going in, unable to see any replays in this sort of state of absolute bedlam. I want to read your match report. Yeah, probably not. I would not recommend it as a read. As it turned out, Man City were champions then under Manuel Pellegrino, later of West Ham, of course, fired by them this season.

27:15The only non-European manager to ever win the Premier League. Remarkable. Suarez finished with 31 goals in what was his final season in England. Not bad, given he'd missed the first five games of the season. He was top scorer and PFA and Football Writers Player of the Year. And Liverpool's long wait for the title continued. Well, there you go, James. That was the 2013-2014 season. We'll not see it's like again. No. I mean, I've missed Vincent Tan and his... With the hand. The hand, yeah. The leather gloves. The leather gloves. Yeah. It seems so rich and colourful now looking back. Yeah. There was also, I mean, there were so many weird incidents that season, but one that people forget is maybe the only example of a player being sacked for a goal celebration.

28:06Do you remember who that was? Nicola Rinalca. Very good. Oh, yeah. The Colonel. The Colonel gesture. Oh, wow. which is quite serious. I mean, I'd never heard of this symbol before. He was introduced to the country and ended up his contract being terminated, which was extraordinary. Well, because it seems such an anodyne thing and because no one was familiar with it in this country, he did it and no one battered an eyelid. And then there were people who were... I must admit, I'd not heard of this Je Donne guy, the comedian who he'd taken it from. I remember Philippe Eau Claire saying, hang on, what the heck is this?

28:34Like, did he just do a canal? And then suddenly it just explodes. Wow. Where's he now, by the way, Nicholas Anilka? He's setting up his own academy in northern France, an academy called NA39, which is his initials and his preferred age. His shirt number. And it's just for strikers. OK, yeah, why not? I expect he's probably playing somewhere as well. He did have this quite nomadic end-of-career phase of globetrotting. He was a brilliant player in Elke. I think he's hugely underrated, actually. Won the Scudetto with Juventus. along with Ben. One of the time favourite goals is his goal in the 98 FA Cup final.

29:14It's just the most fantastically simple centre-forwards finish. Chest down a long ball, knocks it out of his feet, bangs it bottom left, pass Shea Given. Well, I tell you what, if we have time in our busy schedules, one day we should do a Nicholas Anelka retro special. Well, he was player coach of Shanghai Shenhua, Mumbai City FC as well. He's apparently working in Lille's youth sector as well. maybe yes that's right he's working as a striker's coach I mean the funny thing about Nelko is he came through as like a real pacey forward who just went in behind and got in the end of three balls but I mean we could save this for next time let's save that top content for our Nelko as long as you invite me on well thanks to Michael James and Tom and to producer Charlie we'll have more Totally Gold this time next week and we'll be back as mentioned on Tuesday with all that Club World Cup and Inter Totally Cup action for now from all of us here it's goodbye you've been listening to the totally football show part of the athletic fc podcast network for more great football podcasts like this one including the athletic fc and our six dedicated club podcasts search for the athletic on apple spotify and all the usual places the totally football show is an athletic media company production

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