I decided after the draw against Everton in the FA Cup yesterday, to have a look at our 1990/91 campaign - the last time we played our bitter rivals in the FA Cup. That was the season King Kenny walked out while we were top of the league. It was our last serious bid for the league, (disappointingly) finishing seven points behind Arsenal having lost six of our last 14 games.
From comparing the league games, the orders in which some of them came and also the cups, I think you'll find it was spookily similar to this campaign.
FA Cup - drew Everton, drew at Anfield and went to a replay. Played a second tier club in the third round : Blackburn (1990/91) and Preston NE (2008/09)
League Cup - beat Crewe, lost away next round to top flight opposition - Man Utd (1990/91), Tottenham (2008/09)
League
Beat Man Utd - 5th game (1990/91), 4th game (2008/09)
Beat Chelsea - 10th game (1990/91), 9th game (2008/09)
First defeat - 15th game, away to North London club Arsenal (1990/91), 11th game, away to North London club Tottenham (2008/09)
After 10 games
1990/91 : P10 W9 D1 L0 PTS 28
2008/09 : P10 W8 D2 L0 PTS 26
Games 14-22
1990/91 : P9 W3 D4 L2 PTS 13
2008/09 : P9 W3 D6 L0 PTS 15
And as we are now
1990/91* : P22 W15 D5 L2 PTS 50
2008/09 : P22 W13 D8 L1 PTS 47
*1990/91 Liverpool ended on 76 points, same as we did in 2007/08. We picked up 45 points 1st half of the season, just 31 in the 2nd half
In both 1990/91 and 2008/09 we started strongly, had a disappointing 2nd quarter of the season and who knows what will happen in the rest of this season. As mentioned above, we lost six of the last 14 league games of 1990/91 and despite seven wins in that spell, we dropped too many points and finished seven points behind Arsenal.
It was Kenny's last season in charge, resigning on 22nd February 1991 after the FA Cup replay 'thriller' (4-4) against our bitter rivals. Kenny managed something great in his first season in charge (the double) as did Rafa (Champions League) According to Wikipedia Kenny was in charge for 297 games, Rafa has been in charge for 273. Rafa has 16 league games, an FA Cup game/replay (minimum) and two more games in the Champions League (minimum) - somewhere near 300 games in charge IF he is still in charge by the end of the season. Maybe Kenny was helped to his league successes by the lack of European distraction, a shame for him as he was our last great manager.