Taiwo Awoniyi recalled a prediction he made to his family in 2021 about Liverpool which ended up being very close to materialising.
The former Reds striker goes back to Anfield today as part of the Nottingham Forest side hoping to become the first side to deny Jurgen Klopp’s team victory on home soil this season.
It was just over a year ago that the Nigerian scored a winning goal against his former club at the City Ground, and he was speaking to LFC’s official website about his experience of training with our senior squad in pre-season ahead of the 2021/22 campaign.
Reflecting on that summer camp, Awoniyi recalled: “I remember telling my family that for sure Liverpool was going to win the league. And that year they went on to almost win everything.
“The training sessions, wow! I knew that this is the kind of training that you win something from! You don’t train like that and then at the end of the season you get nothing.”
Awoniyi was right in his prediction that Liverpool wouldn’t end the subsequent season empty-handed, with both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup secured in 2021/22 following penalty shootout victories over Chelsea at Wembley.
He was so nearly correct about us winning the Premier League too, but not even a miserly tally of two top-flight defeats was enough to prevent Manchester City from pipping us to the title by a point following a frantic final day on which they came from two goals down to secure the win they needed against Aston Villa.
Six days later, there was further agony for the Reds as they were beaten in the Champions League final by Real Madrid (well, in all honesty by Thibaut Courtois) on the night when UEFA and the French authorities disgraced themselves with their treatment of match-going supporters in Paris.
Even though Awoniyi never got to play a competitive first-team fixture for Liverpool before his permanent departure for Union Berlin in 2021, he knew from training with Klopp’s squad that they were capable of producing something very special in the year which followed.
Almost 18 months on from the end of that campaign, it’s still mind-boggling to think that we were two positive results away from winning an unprecedented quadruple in what would’ve been the greatest individual season by any club in English football history.
#Ep94 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones🎙️