souurce:football365
Liverpool full-back John Arne Riise believes the club will now aim for Barclays Premiership success after securing silverware in consecutive seasons.
Riise, 25, scored in the penalty shoot-out on Saturday during the FA Cup triumph over West Ham, a year after winning the Champions League after a similarly dramatic final. The benchmark of Liverpool's progress, however, is a challenge to Chelsea's dominance in the league, which Riise is now targeting.
"Next year the aim has to be mounting a serious title challenge and I'm sure we can do it," said Riise, who celebrated the FA Cup victory with fans on an open-top bus through Liverpool yesterday.
"Hopefully this time next year we will be doing a parade of the city with the Premiership trophy to show off."
Liverpool never led during the final but forced penalties after two superb volleyed equalisers from Steven Gerrard, the second coming from 35 yards out in the final stages of normal time.
"I never thought we'd lost the game, not even when there was only five minutes left and not even when we went into injury time," Riise added on liverpoolfc.tv
"When you have the best player in the world in your side then you know that anything is possible. I was just praying for somebody to do something special and Stevie came up trumps again.
"Gerrard is the best for me. He is still young, he's got everything in his game and he can do whatever he wants in football.
"It was just brilliant to win the final. The odds were against us at one stage but there's a great belief in this team now and we never believe we are beaten."