A landmark anniversary cast a further shadow on Liverpool's current malaise.
Tuesday’s trip to Hull City offered not only the opportunity to maintain dreams of future fortune, to keep alive faint hopes of securing Uefa Champions League football next season, but it also conjured memories of the club’s prosperous past.
Twenty five years ago to the day, Liverpool triumphed 2-1 against Queens Park Rangers to be crowned the champions of England for the 18th time.
Few would have predicted it back then, but that would represent their last top-flight title, too.
A quarter of a century has now passed without the trophy that once appeared their sole property, and against Hull they would find no silver lining.
A 1-0 defeat could have far-reaching consequences.
That top-four finish, the one remaining ambition from what has been a significantly unsatisfactory campaign for Brendan Rodgers’s side, is now most likely gone, with Manchester United, the team occupying that final Champions League spot, seven points in front. There are four matches of the 2014/15 campaign left.
Liverpool’s problems were personified by two players, one on the pitch and the other sadly not.
A lack of goals this season is well highlighted – Liverpool have struck 47 times in the Premier League; at this stage in 2013/14, they had amassed 90 – but in the perpetually injured Daniel Sturridge they have been long starved of their principal threat.
His most recent ailment, a troublesome hip, is expected to rule him out for the remainder of the season.
In Sturridge’s absence, Mario Balotelli was entrusted to lead Liverpool’s front line, the mercurial misfit charged with sparking a side that drew a blank at West Bromich Albion on Saturday.
Desperate times call for increasingly desperate measures: from his 15 previous Premier League appearances, Balotelli had failed to score in all but one, despite registering 59 attempts on goal.
At the KC Stadium, he would not fare any better.
In fact, his one telling contribution did lead to a goal. Rather unfortunately for Balotelli, it came at the wrong end.
On 36 minutes, the forward was the slowest of the visiting team to vacate the Liverpool penalty area following a Hull corner, and in the process played Michael Dawson onside when Ahmed Elmohamady fired the ball back into the box. The hosts’ captain, unmarked and undetected, directed a fine header past Simon Mignolet.
Balotelli would have a chance to balance out his blunder, but he was too slow to react to Glen Johnson’s inviting cross seconds before half time.
Why always him, eh?
Predictably, Liverpool attempted to force their way back in the match after the break. Balotelli was withdrawn in the 65th minute yet, much like this campaign, their killer instinct deserted them.
Jordan Henderson, typically busy in midfield, forced a couple of saves from Steve Harper, the veteran Hull goalkeeper, but ahead of him Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho struggled to unlock the Hull defence.
Hull were never going to surrender anyway, especially since they required a victory to enhance their climb to Premier League survival.
With the win, Steve Bruce’s side moved up one place to 15th, now surely only another three points from safety.
For Liverpool, they will have to make do with another year of what might have been. Last season’s near-miss, that oh-so-close run towards the English top-flight title is fast becoming a distant memory.
On the night of a landmark anniversary, they highlighted just how far they are from recapturing former glories.
jmcauley@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter at our new home at NatSportUAE
