As if from nowhere a title race has appeared. Manchester City’s 12-point lead is down to six, which means that if Liverpool win their game in hand and if Liverpool win at the Etihad Stadium in April they will be level on points.
City are still in the better position, particularly given they have not lost a league game at home to Liverpool under Pep Guardiola, but what had started to look like a procession quite unexpectedly has regained a sense of intrigue.
It is an indication of how dominant City had come to appear that this feels surprising. Liverpool, after all, have won 11 of their past 14 Premier League matches. In any previous era that would have been obvious title-winning form. Drawing at Tottenham and Chelsea and losing by a single goal at Leicester should not be a wobble from which there is no coming back.
That is a wider concern: it is always tempting for English football to congratulate itself because it has not gone the way of some European leagues and become a monopoly, but it is still troubling if winning the title means having to pick up at least 95 points. That is not the sign of a league that is providing healthy competition on a regular basis. That those are the standards is down in part to the genius of Jürgen Klopp and Guardiola, but also to a broken financial structure.
Expectation
More immediately, though, what is striking is that the expectation had been that Liverpool would wobble in January and February as Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané went to Africa’s Cup of Nations – not just for the two league games they would miss but because there is always a risk after any tournament of emotional hangover.
That the pair faced each other in the final could have heightened that; it took a lot of England’s players until late autumn to begin to find their rhythm again after the Euros. So far, though, there has been no indication at all that either is suffering any kind of reaction.
In that it helps that the great front three now have back-up. Diogo Jota had already given one extra option, but Luis Díaz has settled remarkably quickly. Playing for Klopp looks complicated; it must take players time to learn the pressing schema and assimilate the patterns but, as Klopp has said, Díaz looked a Liverpool player from the moment he first stepped on the pitch for them.
The famous front three have scored four goals between them in the past two games without all being on the field together at any point. Jordan Henderson and Thiago Alcântara have also both made significant contributions from the bench in the past week: little wonder Klopp speaks of this squad as the greatest he has had.
Procession
The danger for those hoping for a proper title race is that this becomes a two-team procession in the way 2018-19 was. Then a run of four draws in six games from the end of January to the beginning of March was enough for Liverpool to cede their advantage to City; Liverpool won their last nine league games of the season but could not get past City as they won their final 14. It was all very impressive, a great demonstration both of ability and nerve, but it was also, for the neutral, rather lacking in drama. A great title race, like 1971-72 or 2011-12, demands fallibility.
City had looked remorseless. The title race had seemed over less because it was inconceivable that Liverpool should embark on a winning run than because it seemed implausible City would drop enough points to let them back in. When a side wins 14 out of 16 games it feels absurd to identify flaws, but perhaps in retrospect there have been hints that they were not quite so impermeable as they appeared.
Leicester, in losing 6-3 to them, showed in the second half that City could still be vulnerable to counter-attacks, that those balls played in behind the defensive line that have always been a potential vulnerability could still cause problems. Spurs were ruthless in exploiting that, largely because City struggled to deal with Harry Kane as he dropped off the front line. He was a danger both with balls played on the turn to runners outside him and with his late runs.
The attacking nature of City’s full-backs means the sort of run from Son Heung-min that led to Tottenham’s opening goal is always a potential danger, but where City have been able to neutralise that is in the form of Rodri blocking the space Kane exploited to spring Son.
Opportunity
Kane, for all the complaints that he should spend more time in the box, is exceptionally good at that. His relationship with Son is very close, but other sides may look at that, and the way James Maddison played against City, and see an opportunity.
There is perhaps at last just a glitch in City’s relentlessness, and if Liverpool maintain their exceptional form there may yet be some life in this season. At the very least a neutral can hope there is enough doubt that that game on April 9th feels meaningful.
– Guardian
