Gerrard demands Premiership challenge
Wednesday, 19 July 2006 17:52Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has told his team-mates they must challenge for the Premiership title this season.
Gerrard has played a major role in bringing the Champions League and FA Cup to Anfield in the last two seasons, but he is growing increasingly frustrated by Liverpool's failure to win the Premiership.
Chelsea's domestic dominance has made it hard for any other team to challenge, but Gerrard believes it is time Liverpool ended a 16-year wait to once again be crowned the Premiership's top side.
Liverpool won the last of their 18 league titles in 1990 and Gerrard is confident boss Rafael Benitez has assembled a squad capable of ending that wait.
The summer signings of Wales striker Craig Bellamy from Blackburn and South American trio Gabriel Paletta, Fabio Aurelio and Mark Gonzalez give Liverpool a resilient look the side has sometimes lacked.
Gerrard told Liverpool's website www.liverpoolfc.tv: 'We want to get involved in a title race domestically, win another trophy and hopefully improve on our run in the Champions League.
'The idea at the beginning of last season was to make Anfield a place where no-one wants to come and we've done that. Next year it'll be more of the same.
'The away form has improved an awful lot as well but I think that's down to signing players like Reina, Sissoko and Crouch who give us that bit more of a physical presence to the team. Teams don't like playing against us now. That's the way we want it to be.'
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