The 2002–2003 season was

Liverpool Football Club Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has ...

's 111th season in existence and their 41st consecutive season in the top-flight of

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Season summary

Having finished second the previous season, Liverpool had high hopes to win their first league title since

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

. Indeed, they topped the Premier League table after their first 12 games (including a seven-game winning streak), picking up 30 points out of a possible 36, a run which saw them four points clear at the top from reigning champions Arsenal. However, on 9 November 2002, they suffered a surprise 1–0 away defeat at the hands of high-fliers

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

. This wasn't completely disastrous; it did see their lead cut to one point but three days later, they completed a miserable week after they bowed out of the Champions League after failure to beat

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. That week's two results started a freefall of 13 matches without victory (including 11 league games) and a dismal run of only two wins in 16 league matches (both away at

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

and

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...

) which ended such title hopes. They were, in fact, out of the top 4 altogether never to return after a shock 2–1 defeat at struggling Sunderland. However, their first home league win in four months came in a 2–0 win over Bolton Wanderers on 8 March 2003, starting a more promising run of seven wins in eight league games which almost took the club to Champions League qualification anyway, but defeats at the hands of Manchester City and

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in the final two games of the season buried those hopes. A League Cup win following a 2–0 victory over arch-rivals Manchester United was the sole glorious moment of a disappointing season.

Final league table

First-team squad

Left club during season

Statistics

Appearances

:''As of end of season''

Transfers

In

Out

* In: £18,400,000 * Out: £5,250,000 * Total spending: £13,150,000

Results

Premier League

Results by round

Champions League

Group B

UEFA Cup

FA Cup

League Cup

References

Notes

External links

2002–03 Liverpool F.C. season at LFCHistory.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:2002-03 Liverpool F.C. season 2002-2003

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...