The calm before the storm

We lost the plot for a while I will admit; in fact at times I was wondering whether we'd ever seen the script in the first place; but once again, when it matters, we are back on the rails and giving fourth place our best shot. Had you told me 6 months back that challenging for fourth place was going to be our main focus going into May, I would have wept like the soft southern shandy drinker I most certainly am. This was to be our year. The year when they all saw it come together. Houllier's plan was coming to fruition and I was daring to dream about lifting the title again. This won't happen this year as we know and as I have said, it's because the blips we have come to take as part and parcel of a Liverpool season have not yet been erradicated and we suffered again. However, that is not what I want to focus on here.

I am finding myself super-confident when I start to think about next season. I know, I've been told.....I am a fan, I am meant to be confident and think we can win everything' but if you've ever read something I've written before, you will find I am one of those whingers who moans about what needs changing and how things should be done and I am rarely confident, especially when our manager practically turns down Rivaldo! But heading into the summer break, I really do find myself pondering the positives.

I admit when Houllier stated that there was going to be minimal movement in the transfer market in the summer, I was disapointed. You don't have a season like this as a fan and not want to see some radical manouveres within the personnel. I think this year we have relied on the form of Gerrard and Owen a little too often and need some of the other players to step up and take some responsiblity off of their shoulders. However, the buzz is that next season Gerrard and Owen will be bang on form. Owen will be reeping the benefits of a summer relaxing (albeit hip-deep in nappies) and Gerrard has had a great 2003 and surely will be beginning to enter his form years over the next two seasons. The effect these two have on our team is phenominal and the rest of the team are maturing and gaining confidence and experience with the passing of every game; just look at Traore...I wouldn't have picked him for my five-a-side team last year; while everyone else was raving about him, I was shouting at the screen for him to pass to someone in red for a change....but he has settled and he has matured at fantastic pace. This goes to for Milan Baros and El Hadji Diouf who go from strength to strength and are better every time I see them. One of the best decisions Houllier made this year was to stop rotating the squad so much and settle on Diouf as a right winger. He needed time to learn the craft out wide, but he is now a danger and a handful for fullbacks.

With the arrival of one or two new faces and, lest we forget Pongolle and Le Tallac jetting in in the near future, we are looking like a team who can grow our own talent and mix it perfectly with a blend of young foreign players who are willing to learn and eager to win. This season may make a slightly less enjoyable video than most in the past; we haven't achieved all that I had dreamed about this time last year and we didn't create too many storming perfomances.....but 2003 was certainly a year when the management began to realise that you have to use your best team to win games and sometimes you have to persevere with players to enable them to reach the mark. Now this has been realised, I can't contain myself and am telling everyone that next year we will have something to shout about.....in the Premiership and in the Champions league as soon as we've clinched that spot.....roll on final day.