For Jurgen Klopp it seems domestic cups in England are like buses. You wait ages for one and then two come along at once.
Since his Anfield arrival in October 2015, Liverpool have flattered to deceive on this front but after lifting the League Cup at Chelsea’s expense back in February, the Merseysiders have duly returned to Wembley three months later to leave Thomas Tuchel’s European champions feeling blue once again.
It is no mean feat and the result is that Klopp has pretty much won it all when it comes to adding to the Champions Walls at Anfield and inside the club’s AXA Training Centre.
And yet … There is a sense that this Liverpool team STILL need something more, particularly when it comes to legacy.
A preposterous notion? Perhaps. Remember, this is the team that ended a 30-year wait for a Premier League title, that has pushed Manchester City to the limit at the summit of the table on more than a couple of occasions, won the club’s first ever Club World Cup and have also reached three Champions League finals in the last five years.
The standards Klopp and his side have set in recent seasons have threatened to reach new heights even for a club with the glittering history of the Anfield giants. Indeed, many a Kopite privy to witnessing the greats of the 70s and 80s have suggested this is the best team they have ever seen play on the hallowed L4 turf.
That is some accolade and conversely this is where expectation soars beyond the norm.
If this Liverpool team is to stand above greats of yesteryear, they must go on and win more of the top-tier trophies. Yes, they may have surpassed points tallies of previous champions wearing a liverbird upon their chest, but at present the roll of honour stands at one top-flight title and one Champions League.
A second Premier League title in three years is looking unlikely given Manchester City’s fixtures, three-point lead and superior goal difference – and that is where the unprecedented quadruple bid is likely to come unstuck. Stranger things have happened, of course, but Pep Guardiola’s team will have to suffer a collapse akin to their Champions League semi final exit – and it’s hard to see lightning striking twice with such a magnificent team.
If there is no intervention from the footballing gods, there remains the Champions League final with 13-time winners Real Madrid in Paris on May 28 to try to sign off a fantastic, incredible season as an undisputed, great one.
Klopp himself has previously stated they would need to accumulate more silverware if their legend is to stand the test of time.
Earlier in the season he said: “In 20 years if you want to talk about this team, I would not be surprised if people would then say if we don’t win anything any more, ‘Yeah they were good, but they should have won more’. That’s why we should try now to win a few things.”
This FA Cup triumph ensures two more trophies have been added to the cabinet for this particular side but there’s no doubt within the inner sanctum of Anfield they will be disappointed if they don’t go on from the euphoria of another shoot-out triumph and land at least one of the two big ones.
Three ‘cup finals’ remain with two league wins and a snooker needed to pinch the title, but the big one will come against Real Madrid – that is in their hands.
Mo Salah has already stoked the flames ahead of the contest by suggesting there’s unfinished business from the 2018 final defeat in Kyiv and what better way to potentially confirm a season to match any of the greats of times gone by than by lifting a seventh European Cup in Paris in the spring?
