By David Butler
After 13 game weeks Liverpool have only failed to win once this season - at any level of football it typically takes this burst of wins to be crowned champions.
One way of looking at this is that the challengers run out of matches. Rather than any miraculous big-match wins from the future champions (which of course do happen), things are more attritional. You burn off the competition week-by-week as other contenders slip up.
Alex Ferguson had this down to a T. His Manchester United sides would lose and draw some big games but would put all the minnows to the sword – others struggled to do this as effectively. After all, there is 3 points at stake for all matches regardless of the opponent.
Liverpool seem to be knocking teams out of the Premier league race week-by-week. While in theory, any team can still win the league, for all intents and purposes the race is run for the vast majority.
Assuming that the winning team, most likely Liverpool, will accumulate 98 or 100 points – the points required to win the league in 2018/2019 and 2017/2018 – the challengers can have the following slips:
After 13 game weeks Liverpool have only failed to win once this season - at any level of football it typically takes this burst of wins to be crowned champions.
One way of looking at this is that the challengers run out of matches. Rather than any miraculous big-match wins from the future champions (which of course do happen), things are more attritional. You burn off the competition week-by-week as other contenders slip up.
Alex Ferguson had this down to a T. His Manchester United sides would lose and draw some big games but would put all the minnows to the sword – others struggled to do this as effectively. After all, there is 3 points at stake for all matches regardless of the opponent.
Liverpool seem to be knocking teams out of the Premier league race week-by-week. While in theory, any team can still win the league, for all intents and purposes the race is run for the vast majority.
Assuming that the winning team, most likely Liverpool, will accumulate 98 or 100 points – the points required to win the league in 2018/2019 and 2017/2018 – the challengers can have the following slips:
98 Points League Winner
Leicester City can drop a maximum of 6 points, Manchester City can drop a maximum of 5 points and Chelsea a maximum of 3 points.
100 Points Winner
Both Leicester City and Manchester City can drop a maximum of 3 points and Chelsea must win all remaining matches.
If Jurgen Klopp plans on replicating Liverpool form from last season (97 points total), he is already putting major pressure on his rivals. Manchester City can really only afford one more loss over the next 25 games if Liverpool go one point better this season and reach last year’s 98 point winning total.
For some extra bragging rights, Liverpool fans might take pleasure in knowing that they were the ones to knock Manchester United out of the title race. Again, assuming a 98-point league winner, Adam Lallana’s late equalising goal at Old Trafford effectively ended United’s tilt at the title. That was only 9 games in.
Of course, these are very high winning totals and are down to Manchester City's exceptional performances. If an average of the last 5 seasons is considered (circa 92 points), there is scope for more slips from the contenders.
For some extra bragging rights, Liverpool fans might take pleasure in knowing that they were the ones to knock Manchester United out of the title race. Again, assuming a 98-point league winner, Adam Lallana’s late equalising goal at Old Trafford effectively ended United’s tilt at the title. That was only 9 games in.
Of course, these are very high winning totals and are down to Manchester City's exceptional performances. If an average of the last 5 seasons is considered (circa 92 points), there is scope for more slips from the contenders.
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