Liverpool denied title but Paris can provide final flourish to superb season

There is nothing quite like the noise of a goal being scored elsewhere: the isolated explosion from whoever saw it flash up on their phones or heard it on their radios, first rippling out, the doubts almost audible as the wave spreads. Really? Manchester City behind? Could it be true? Then the scramble for confirmation, the celebration hovering uncertainly. What about VAR? Might it yet be ruled out? Then word coming through that City had kicked off again, that the goal stood, that this might actually be happening.

In the end it did not, but for 80 unlikely minutes it seemed as though it might. Liverpool did their bit, and in the end that is all they could do. They won and they hoped and in the end it wasn’t quite enough. Perhaps there is a temptation to go back through the season and wonder which the crucial points were: the Christmas defeat at Leicester perhaps? The defeat at West Ham? The draw at home against Brighton?

But the truth is that 92 points is, by any reasonable measure, an absurd number of points to have gathered; only once before has that not been enough to win the title, and that was this Liverpool in 2019. That season Liverpool won the Champions League and, although the quadruple has again proved elusive, that prize perhaps awaits next weekend. There may be disappointment at having missed out on a historical achievement having come so close, but whatever happens against Real Madrid this has been an astonishing season. There should be no recriminations.

And yet the league was close. With 20 minutes to go it felt almost within Liverpool’s grasp. As Anfield roared about events 35 miles to the east there was profound anxiety. In such circumstances, narrative, the sense that this was written, that it was meant