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16 Stories on Liverpool FC
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SI.com: Gabriele Marcotti: Liverpool struggling mightily, but not all is lost

If you're a Liverpool fan, you're probably pretty angry right now. You've won one game since September (albeit a pretty important one, against Manchester United), qualification to the knockout stage of the Champions League seems extremely improbable right now and you're sixth in the English Premier League, after finishing second last year.

SI.com: The Limey: Liverpool learns high cost of Premiership business

Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez is not a happy man. In the past few seasons, he's had his own way in the transfer market, happily signing 3-4 big-name players each summer, spending an average of $70 million across the last four.

SI.com: The Limey: Saluting the best and worst in EPL's season-end awards

There's cigar smoke and perfume in the evening air as the thronging masses head to Castle Limey for our annual awards ceremony. Only one man is headed the other way: a winking, temperamental, petulant, prima donna flagging down a lift to Madrid. Are you sitting comfortably now, the chilled Taittinger bubbling to perfection? Team Limey takes the stage.

SI.com: The Limey: Chelsea, Liverpool set for Champions League war again

Ordinarily, Manchester United making a trip to Craven Cottage isn't much of a story. Fulham hasn't beaten United at home in league play since 1964. But an unusually high amount of attention is focused on this weekend's encounter.

SI.com: The Limey: Chelsea struggling to navigate uncertain times

The headline English Premier League game this weekend sees second-place Chelsea visiting Old Trafford to face third-place Manchester United on Sunday. Usually a close affair, their first EPL meeting of the season was a 1-1 draw, as was their nail-biting Champions League final matchup last May.

SI.com: The Limey: Adventurous spirit could lead Liverpool to a title

It's a whisper that's slowly becoming a roar -- Liverpool for the title. Seasoned Reds fans in England's Northwest may be staying tight-lipped, but as grim economic recession stories multiply in the U.K. headlines, talk of a football renaissance in the European capital of culture is spreading through the back pages.

SI.com: Jonah Freedman: Liverpool and La Liga Dominate

It's hard to believe nearly six months have passed since Spain began its title march at the European Championship and killing off one of the biggest jinxes in the soccer world. (Know the pheeling, Phillies fans?) Even today, despite a few nasty side plots, everything feels right on Planet Football.

SI.com: Jonah Freedman: Chelsea reclaims No. 1; Liverpool, Juventus return

The greatest show on earth is back in action. If you're looking at these rankings and coming to the conclusion that Champions League play seems to dominate, good for you. That's the biggest mountain-moving criteria we're using this time around. To us, the grandest club tournament in the world is the best gauge to determine who the movers and shakers are.

SI.com: The Limey: Soccernomics 101: Recession and its effect on the EPL

Soccernomics: the study of the relationship between human wants and the allocation of scarce resources in soccer, the world's most popular and globalized sport.

SI.com: Jonah Freedman: Euro champs Man. United lock their claws on No. 1

A year ago in this space, we dropped the hammer on Liverpool, which had inexplicably defied the odds and advanced to its second Champions League final in three years. But seeing as the Reds lost out to AC Milan, managed only another fourth-place finish in the English Premier League and finished the season without a single trophy, it was a tough call to leave them on the Rankings. Not even another Rafa Benítez miracle could save them.

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