At the start of that year, defending league champions Liverpool had been in an unfamiliar position: fifth in the league and nine points behind leaders Arsenal. They were playing three games a week; they’d been going to all the funerals, and there was a sense that a lot of them were exhausted,” says Gordon. “You put 10 months οn hold, you give your all for 10 months,” says Gillespie. For now, that is the unanswered question. Players had watched the injured and dying being carried away ᧐n advertising hoardings used as emergency stretchers and, in the weeks that followed, provided solace for the grieving. For those who witnessed it, the 1988/89 season finale lives strong in the memory. The family has experienced close calls over the last three decades - second-place finishes under Rafael Benitez and Brendan Rodgers, and last season's astonishing 97-point haul which was eclipsed only by Manchester City -- but during those seasons Liverpool weren't unquestionably the best. Yet Villa stuttered. A home loss to Manchester City was followed by a 3-3 draw with Norwich City and, as any seasoned predator would, Liverpool capitalized.
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