IN the end, Liverpool have achieved pretty much the best outcome they could have hoped for this season – even though the wait to end the title drought goes on.

Yes, people will point to the seven home draws which, if they had been turned into wins might just have given them that extra little nudge over the line ahead of Manchester United.

And the fact that they have only lost two league games – half the amount of the eventual champions – suggests that this has been the big opportunity to finally win that 19th league. And Liverpool have blown it big time.

But the reality is very different. The reality is that for all the plaudits for being the Premier League’s top scorers and the hardest side to beat, they still can’t compete with United.

While it’s all very well lamenting the points dropped, it also has to be remembered that Liverpool also gained some points from games that they weren’t at their best in and had to rely on late interventions to sneak victory.

In other words, they did have match-winners on some occasions, but in the end not enough.

United seem to come up with them on a consistent basis – they have won 27 of their 37 games – and that is the key difference.

I have been banging on about this for much of the season, but in the end it has proved the most obvious shortcoming in Liverpool’s continuing failure to overhaul their great rivals from the opposite end of the M62.

I keep hearing ‘well, it Torres and Gerrard had been fit all the way through the season we would have won it’.