I hate the idea of giving up on a season with almost 5 months yet to play, but I'm starting to think that Liverpool has lost all chance at winning their 19th top division title this season. After leading the league through the early months of the season, they've now gone 10 Premiership matches without a win following their most recent 1-0 loss to Newcastle United. The real problem is though, what happened?

Can one really blame the manager when a team just begins to fall apart? Once again, I want to point out that Liverpool were top of the table when their worst slide in 50 years began. Even chancing that somewhere certain players have had bad luck, Houllier has tried dozens of different player combinations, but nothing seems to be working. He's switched from Dudek to Kirkland in goal, rotated the midfield and frontline (of course, the injuries to Owen and Heskey don't help), and filled gaps in a defense that had been the best in the league the previous two seasons. He even tried benching Gerrard when he thought the young midfielder's attitude and form had taken a dip. Nothing has worked.

While one might say that the players have taken an obvious dip in performance, how does an entire team go about taking 10 games off? Has every player on this large squad really slacked off that much? Unfortunately, it's been several weeks since a Liverpool match has been broadcast here, but I find it difficult to believe that the entire team has gone about such a major collapse.

So what does it all come down to? Luck? Maybe, but what I really think is that this team really just needs a spark. When a team sinks this deeply into a funk, they need some sparkplug to light a fire under the rest of the team. Houllier has supposedly come out in public and stated that he doesn't intend to make any moves during the current transfer window, but I think that would be a major mistake. If nobody on the current squad is going to provide that spark that the side needs, then he needs to go out in search of someone to take on the duty. Even just a player taken on loan could do the duty under the right circumstances. At this point, with a title almost assuredly lost, it's time to start thinking about at least pulling back into contention for at minimum a spot in next season's UEFA Cup, if not a spot in the Champion's League.