Day 134. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine. (13/5/19)

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be feeling today.

Twitter yesterday spoke of failure, of falling short, of other teams taking credit for the moments that stopped us from winning the league.

I think I'm supposed to feel bad about these things.

But I don't.

Possibly it's because our season hasn't ended yet. Our season ends on 1st of June in Madrid, less than a fortnight before the fixtures for next season's adventure are revealed. And let's be honest, we all know that the 'fixture computer' will 'somehow', 'mysteriously', throw up an encounter between Liverpool and Manchester City somewhere near the middle of May 2020.

Possibly it's because our reaction to our not having won the league was to sing songs of defiance and then go out drinking with friends and family and sing the songs we've sung all season.

Everything is about moving forward. And this season has been a move forward. We ended 2017/18 in fourth place and then watching our goalkeeper at the time throw the ball to Real Madrid players on a hot night in Kiev (or a sweltering night in Death Row Diner on Hope Street, depending on your viewing position; mine was the latter).

We ended that season on 75 points, 25 points behind the leaders, six points off second, everybody watching the Manchester City procession from January onwards.

This season we ended by being in with a chance of winning our first title in nearly thirty years. We ended with being in the race on the last day. We looked at the most expensively assembled team, probably the best team, in premiership history and we took them to the wire.

That the title chance may have been removed by Pickford's save in the derby or not being able to take the game to 10 men, three of them injured, at Old Trafford or not being able to take all three points at West Ham or conceding an equaliser at Anfield to a Leicester centre back who should have already been sent off doesn't matter. Somewhere in those games lie the two points that we dropped. Somewhere in the goal-line technology that saw our ball not cross the line fully while City's did is the way the title ran. Everything is fine margins.

It didn't quite happen. But the progress was inarguable. We became a better team. We improved.

Two of the three golden boot winners were on our pitch when they received the trophy between them, the golden gloves award was there. We had the most points that we've ever amassed, the fourth highest points total in the history of English football, a haul that would win the title in 116 of the 119 seasons that the league has existed. Two of the seasons that it wouldn't win it are this and last.

More points than the United team that won the treble, more than Arsenal's Invincibles. The gap between ourselves and the team in third, which I've only just realised is Chelsea, Spurs dropping to fourth at the last moment, is 25 points - the gap between ourselves and City last time out. Manchester United are thirty-one points below us in sixth. We are the first team ever to finish in second place and not lose to a single team below us.

The stats are wonderful in their individual form. We were just up against a team that were one point better than us. A team that had to win the last fourteen games in order to beat us to the title. And did it. They're some team. Now we need to be better.

We have so much to be proud of. We've also had so much fun doing this. The football may not have been as brilliantly chaotic as last season but it's been more grown up, more clinical, more controlled. It's been about winning games however the game needs to be won.

Our backroom team has analysed the team and decided what would be needed for a one hundred point season. And very nearly achieved that. They aimed for the second highest points total in English top flight history and nearly did it.

And if the 'nearly' part of that has others accusing us of failure? It doesn't matter. Those accusing us of failure weren't even aiming.

The next step is to do this again. The next step is to do this again and decide how we turn two of those draws into wins. We worked out how to turn losses into no longer being losses, now we need to add the two points that would have seen us one point above City instead of one point behind, the two into six, the three into nine. We need to work out how to beat the one team that beat us this season,. that team being the only team above us.

The joy is that this isn't the end. Not winning it in the Rodgers' season felt like the end. We knew we were losing our best player. This season doesn't feel like that. This season feels like a step forward on a journey. With more to come. There are no obvious unwanted departures on the horizon. There are obvious incomings.

So we stood in the sunshine and drank, we sat in bars and sang songs. And as each of us left we left with the message "see you in Madrid" because we're all going. We may not all have tickets by the time we get there but we're going.

It's not over. We get to do this once again.

Then we can have the summer, buy some new lads to write songs about and start again.

Everybody has to start again. Nobody else is starting again having done this already.