Flashbacks for Liverpool at home can be found here and here, while last week’s editions for Liverpool away can be found here and here.

By the end of 1989, Arsenal and Liverpool had played each other as many as fifteen times in all competitions over the three and a half seasons since George Graham took over at Arsenal, taking in the League, League Cup, Makita International Tournament, Mercantile Credit Cup and the Charity Shield. The final game between the two sides during the 1980s took place one month before Christmas, Live on ITV. Liverpool got a degree of revenge over Arsenal for both the League title exactly six months prior, as well as knocking them out of the League Cup. John Lukic saved a first half penalty from John Barnes, however Steve McMahon gave Liverpool the lead with a twenty yard drive.

John Barnes doubled their lead with a great twenty yard free kick after sixty five minutes. Though Alan Smith pulled one back eleven minutes from time, Liverpool took all three points with a 2-1 win. Arsenal started that day top of the league after beating QPR at home 3-0 the week before, however a Liverpool victory meant the Merseysiders head the table on goal difference with a four-way tie on points between the Liverpool, Arsenal, Aston Villa and newly promoted Chelsea. Liverpool however ended up in a title race with Graham Taylor’s Aston Villa that season. In mid-March, Liverpool visited Old Trafford to play Man United.

For all of Fergie’s talk of knocking Liverpool off of their perch, the Merseysiders comfortably came out on top in this fixture with a 2-1 win, United however were brought back into the game by an incredible own goal from Ronnie Whelan who chipped Bruce Grobbelaar from twenty yards. By the end of April Liverpool had sown up the League title with a 2-1 win over QPR, despite Rangers taking the lead through a goal from American striker Roy Wegerle. Goals from Ian Rush and a penalty from John Barnes gave Liverpool the points to give them their eighteenth and final league championship. The finished the League programme with an emphatic 6-1 win over Coventry City.

Going into 1990/91, English clubs had been readmitted to European competition, Liverpool however were disallowed from entering the European Cup as it was deemed by UEFA that they were to serve an additional ban of one more season for their fans’ part in the Heysel Stadium tragedy. The Merseysiders however still looked the main side to challenge for the title the next season, with Fergie – despite winning his first trophy at Old Trafford the previous May – still no nearer knocking them off their perch, as the Merseysiders inflicted a 4-0 win over Man United at Anfield in mid-September live on ITV, with a hat-trick for Peter Beardsley (against his old club) and one from John Barnes, who throughout the game was roundly booed by the Man United fans, as he had from most opposition support in the early part of 1990/91 for his poor showing in the 1990 World Cup. A week later, Liverpool also pulled off a 3-2 win away at Everton.

After Arsenal became embroiled in a brawl with Man United and had two points deducted by the Football League, despite being unbeaten since the start of the season the Gunners found themselves eight points behind Liverpool - who were also unbeaten until suffering a 3-0 defeat away at Highbury. By mid-February, Liverpool had a three point cushion over Arsenal despite winning just two games out of their last seven. Since the turn of the year, Liverpool signed Jimmy Carter from Millwall and David Speedie from Coventry both of which came in for criticism (although the latter made an immediate impact with a debut goal against Man Utd, as well as scoring against Everton in a 3-1 win a few games later). Dalglish also came in for criticism for keeping Peter Beardsley out of the side.

The final straw for Kenny came in the FA Cup, as Liverpool required replays to get past lower league opposition in Blackburn and Brighton. In the fifth round came a tie away at neighbours Everton, where Liverpool took the lead and lost it on four occasions, with the game ending in a 4-4 draw. Dalglish decided on the night that he would quit the managerial role at Anfield and retire from football (although he would be back), which was announced the following Friday to a bemused Merseyside. The fallout from which can be seen from an episode of Saint & Greavsie the following day.

During the early stages of 1990/91, Dalglish had been receiving hospital injections to clear up a puzzling skin rash. In the years since, Dalglish’s shock decision has been attributed to a delayed form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from the Hillsborough experience of two years earlier, where the Liverpool manager attended each and every funeral of each victim (it’s also easy to forget that Hillsborough was the third disaster in which Dalglish would be unfortunate enough to be present at, along with Heysel and the Ibrox disaster which occurred at an Auld Firm derby on January 2nd 1971). His assistant Ronnie Moran took over briefly as caretaker manager.

The following day, Liverpool played Luton on what many people called the ‘dreaded’ plastic pitch and faced a 1-3 loss, while Arsenal hammered third place Crystal Palace at home to take the Gunners back to the top of the table on goal difference. To make things worse for Liverpool, one week on Arsenal came to Anfield on top form and inflicted a second defeat in three years on the Merseysiders, as the Gunners ran out 1-0 winners. Ronnie Moran’s time in charge at Anfield brought a wildly inconsistent Liverpool side, briefly going back to the top of the table after a 7-1 win at Derby, on the back of two Arsenal draws with Norwich and Nottingham Forest.

The following week meanwhile, Liverpool were to lose 1-3 at home to Don Howe’s QPR on Easter Saturday and a 0-1 defeat away at Southampton on Easter Monday, while Arsenal won 2-0 away at Derby and 5-0 at home to Aston Villa at home the following Wednesday. Liverpool too would fail to beat Coventry at home with a 1-1 draw and just scrape a win away at Leeds United 5-4. Such inconsistent form meant that rather than wait until the end of the season Liverpool brought Dalglish’s replacement in immediately with just five games left, opting for Graeme Souness who had won three Scottish League titles with Rangers.

Despite winning his first two games by a 3-0 score line against Norwich and Crystal Palace, Souness’s Liverpool blew their title chances over the May Day bank holiday, first losing to 2-4 to Chelsea away on the Saturday and then losing 1-2 to Nottingham Forest which handed the title to Arsenal, the second scored with an excellent shot by Merseyside born boyhood Liverpool fan Ian Woan. Toward the end, the Forest fans sang: ‘you’re not champions anymore’ (who’d have thought back then that that could be sung repeatedly for the next twenty five seasons?) and at the final whistle a jubilant Alan Smith, David Seaman, David O’Leary and Nigel Winterburn would be interviewed by ITV’s Gary Newbon.

Despite Arsenal losing just one game all season (the fewest in the top flight since Preston North End went unbeaten in 1888/89), as well as conceding just eighteen goals all season, Souness would ludicrously claim that Arsenal didn’t win the title, Liverpool lost it. However, far from restoring Liverpool to their former glory, it turned out that Dalglish’s successor Graeme Souness would be something of a wrecking ball to Liverpool’s standing in the game. Within the next couple of seasons, Souness would offload the likes of Peter Beardsley, Steve Staunton and Ray Houghton who were far from past their prime. One of Souness’s earliest signings however would be Michael Thomas from Arsenal, after Mickey fell out with George Graham spending most of the title run-in sitting on the bench and replaced in the first team by David Hillier.

Thomas’s exit from Arsenal would be an acrimonious one and on meeting Arsenal for the first time at Anfield, nearly three years on from the scene of his greatest triumph, Thomas’s every touch would be booed by Arsenal’s travelling support. Also making his Arsenal debut that day would be Ray Parlour, however the Romford Pele gave away a penalty for a foul on Ronnie Rosenthal which Jan Molby put away on the brink of half time. In the second half, a Ray Houghton goal rounded off a 0-2 defeat for Arsenal. This result came not long after defeat away at Wrexham and would also mean that the Gunners would slip to seventh in the table after failing to win their last six games, though would actually go unbeaten for the rest of the season finishing fourth and eight points above Liverpool in sixth.

It would also be only the second time since 1970/71 that Liverpool would not be involved in the title race in any significant way, although the Merseysiders won the 1992 FA Cup Final after beating second tier Sunderland 2-0 at Wembley with a superb opening goal from Michael Thomas and a fifth FA Cup Final goal from Ian Rush. Liverpool started the inaugural Premiership season on the first ever ‘Super Sunday’ on Sky Sports, though suffered a 0-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest with a goal from Teddy Sherringham (which admittedly gave an utterly false impression of Forest’s chances in 1992/93, as they were to be relegated from the top flight in Brian Clough’s first season).

After the first two games of the inaugural Premiership season, the bottom two sides would be Arsenal and Man Utd who both picked up zero points out of six, whereas the top two bagging full points would be Norwich and Coventry. Arsenal’s third game of the season would be away at Anfield, where the Gunners picked up their first three points of the Premiership era with a 2-0 win with goals from Anders Limpar and Ian Wright. Like 1989, Arsenal would win by two clear goals, however unlike three years earlier Arsenal did it pretty much without breaking sweat and could have won by more, which kind of signalled that under Graeme Souness Liverpool were very much a different outfit compared to what many people were accustomed to over the previous two decades. However, it was also to be Arsenal’s last win at Anfield for the next nine seasons.

Liverpool finished the inaugural Premiership in sixth position and trophy-less. In 1993/94, Graeme Souness’s last game against Arsenal as Liverpool manager came in early October and ended in a 0-0 draw. Liverpool would endure a second successive trophy-less term for the first time since 1970/71, as a result of being eliminated from the FA Cup the following January with a 0-1 defeat to Bristol City at home, which as a result led to Souness’s resignation. Speaking here in an interview with Sky’s ‘Goals on Sunday’, Graeme clearly mis-remembers his time at Anfield, claiming they had been trophy-less for two seasons on his arrival (they were actually reigning champions), though does claim to have unsuccessfully tried to implement changes to Anfield which he had picked up on the continent, which only have become common place in the English game since Wenger’s arrival a few years later.

Liverpool kept up the boot room tradition and promoted Coach Roy Evans, who incredibly played only nine games in nine seasons as a player at Anfield, but joined the coaching staff under Bill Shankly in 1974 and remained on the coaching staff for the next twenty years before taking over the main role. Arsenal’s first visit during the Roy Evans era led to 0-3 hammering for the Gunners, losing their second game in a week as a result of a Robbie Fowler trio of goals in under five minutes, which became the quickest hat-trick in Premiership history. This game would also come within the midst of a five game run without win for Arsenal, in what be a relatively poor season on the domestic front. In January, Liverpool would also eliminate Arsenal from the League Cup in the Quarter Final stage, with an Ian Rush goal inflicting a 0-1 defeat on the Gunners.

Liverpool went on to win the League Cup that season with a 2-1 win over second tier Bolton. Two days before Christmas 1995, Arsenal would visit Anfield and despite taking the lead through a goal from Ian Wright, for the second season running would be on the receiving end of a Robbie Fowler hat-trick, this time losing 1-3. Liverpool’s ‘Spice Boys’ would reach Wembley again in 1995/96, famed for their dreadful white suits and an equally dreadful final won with a late Eric Cantona goal to seal Man Utd’s second double in three seasons with a 1-0 win. The following August, in the second game of the season a manager-less Arsenal side awaiting Arsene Wenger’s arrival suffered a 0-2 loss at Anfield with two goals from Steve McManaman.

In 1996/97, Arsenal would also exit the League Cup in the fourth round at Anfield suffering a 2-4 loss. Arsenal would take the lead through a penalty from Ian Wright, while Liverpool would race into a 3-1 lead with goals from Steve McManaman, a Robbie Fowler penalty and a second from Fowler six minutes into the second half. Ian Wright would bring Arsenal back into the game with another penalty, though Patrick Berger would seal Liverpool’s passage to the next round with a fourth. By the time of Arsenal’s next visit to Anfield at the end of 1997/98, they were on course for the double and had already bagged the League title. A Merseyside fan base that were beginning to tire of Manc superiority gave newly crowned Champions Arsenal a rousing reception during the Guard of honour.

Arsenal, with one eye on the upcoming FA Cup Final, suffered a 0-4 loss at Anfield, with goals from Michael Owen, Oyvind Leonardson and two for ‘big time Charlie’ Paul Ince. By the start of the 1998/99 season Roy Evans’s assistant Ronnie Moran retired and would be replaced by Gerard Houllier who would be appointed as a joint manager. Arsenal visited Liverpool for the second fixture of the season which ended in a 0-0 draw. The joint manager set up however wasn’t to Roy Evans’s liking which led to his resignation, leaving Houllier in sole charge of Liverpool and bringing an end to the Boot Room succession nearly four decades on from Bill Shankly’s appointment.