On May 26, 1989, Arsenal beat Liverpool in a dramatic fashion to lift the First Division League title.
In terms of drama, people talk about Sergio Aguero’s last-minute goal in 2012 to win the league title for Manchester City with fondness. But it came against a relegation-threatened QPR side.
Alan Smith grabbed the opener before Michael Thompson added his side’s second at Anfield to secure arguably the most famous league title of all time.
Speaking on the “In Lockdown” podcast, Alan Smith highlights the team spirit before that crucial game.
“George Graham did ever so well,” he said. “If you feel you’ve got to win by two goals, you’re thinking, ‘Where are these goals going to come from?’
“George’s main point of his team talks in the hotel and then the dressing room was the clean sheet. He said, ‘Lads, don’t worry about scoring, we will get the goals, but if we concede a goal then we’ve got to get three and you can forget it. As long as we keep a clean sheet, we’re always in the game. We’re always in the hunt.’
“That kind of eased our minds a little bit, it took the pressure off to think, ‘Okay, we know how to keep clean sheets’ with the back four, or the back five as it was that night. We had some terrific defenders. That sent us out with clear minds, we weren’t constantly thinking about trying to get a goal.
“I’ll never forget, I was going for the Golden Boot before the game. This was maybe a sign of nerves in the Liverpool dressing room… John Aldridge was competing with me for the Golden Boot and the Adidas representative poked his head around our dressing room and asked if I’d do a presentation on the pitch with John beforehand.
“I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it. No problem.’ He came back and said, ‘John doesn’t want to do it, he’s changed his mind.’ So I said, ‘OK, fair enough.’ Then he came back five minutes later and said, ‘No, no, actually John will do it.’ Then he came back again and said, ‘No, John definitely doesn’t want to do it now’. I thought, ‘Oh wow, maybe that’s just a reflection of the Liverpool dressing room.’
“As you can imagine, you can win the league by losing 1-0. It’s a strange old situation whereas our task was a lot clearer.”
