Jamie Carragher reveals one reason why Liverpool never won the Premier League during his career


Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has opened up on not winning the Premier League in his career, despite a few very close attempts.
For a period, the Reds continually fell short behind Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. It was a time of real quality and strength in the English top-flight as all four sides were often among the final few teams in the UEFA Champions League. Carragher saw his side go close in the league in the 2008/09 campaign as they fell four points short, losing just two games.
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Hide AdThey went even closer in 2014 a season after he retired and it looked like a curse that wouldn’t be broken until Jurgen Klopp’s side achieved the feat in the 2019/20 campaign. Looking back at those years, in the latest episode of ‘Stick to Football’, Carragher broke down that era and concluded that they needed a ‘difference-maker’ in attack to win at that time - a player which they simply didn’t have.
“When you say about winning the league, I think from 2005-2010 - the Benitez years - we were up against the best Man United team with Rooney, you had the best Arsenal team around 2004, the best Chelsea team with Jose Mourinho and you’d go into the Champions League each year as the four best teams alongside AC Milan and Barcelona.
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“So even though we didn’t win the league, we were part of the best five or six teams in Europe. The problem was three of the other teams were in the Premier League. We just didn’t quite have enough in the wide areas; you [points to Gary Neville] say this a lot, you never played against an amazing winger for Liverpool. We never had a Ronaldo or Giggs. If we’d had a Sadio Mane or Mohamed Salah I think we would have won the league that season [2008/09].”
At the time, the club had Dirk Kuyt, Jermaine Pennant, Alberto Riera and Yossi Benayoun as options in wide areas. Kuyt was a key figure scoring 15 times and providing 11 assists, but the other three combining for 29 goal contributions - largely thanks to Benayoun. Still, the likes of Mane and Salah would hit 20 goals in all competitions, minimum, while also providing assists and it would have certainly been just the edge needed to eclipse Sir Alex Ferguson’s side at the time.
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