Depending on who you listen to, you might be duped into thinking that Liverpool are an ordinary team who’ve merely won the Premier League by deault this season.
That was the insinuation from Richard Keys in a petty diatribe in recent days, for which Jason McAteer rightly took him to task, and the Reds secured the title on Sunday with four matches to spare after they thrashed Tottenham Hotspur 5-1.
Arne Slot’s side sit 15 points clear of second-placed Arsenal, who still have to visit Anfield just four days after what’s sure to be an emotionally and physically draining Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain.
Liverpool could still set Premier League record this season
The i Paper‘s chief football correspondent Sam Cunningham penned an article on Monday evening in which he eloquently explained why accusations that Liverpool aren’t worthy champions are absolute nonsense, pointing to a Premier League record which could still plausibly be broken.
The journalist wrote: ‘The biggest title-winning margin belongs to the Manchester City team of 2017-18, who won the league by 19 points.
‘Liverpool currently lead the table by 15 points, and it isn’t inconceivable that in the final four games of the season they equal or surpass that. They still have Arsenal to play at Anfield, remember.
‘That same season, City amassed a record 100 points. Liverpool can still hit 94. They have won seven of their last eight league games, during which they have apparently been having a wobble.’
Liverpool could even outdo the legendary 2019/20 champions
When the Reds won the Premier League in 2020, their eventual winning margin was a whopping 18 points, and even that had been reduced in the closing weeks of the season, with two of their three defeats that term coming after they’d already clinched the title.
It’s not unthinkable that there could be a similar subconscious drop-off in the final month of his campaign, but nor is it implausible that they might yet exceed the cavernous gap by which they won the division five years ago.
It’s fair to claim that Liverpool haven’t been all-singing and all-dancing in quite a few of their victories this season, but the same could be said of the 2019/20 side which claimed 79 points from the first 81 on offer and accrued a final tally of 99.
The Reds’ final four matches this term are against Chelsea (away), Arsenal (home), Brighton (away) and Crystal Palace (home).
The west Londoners are still scrapping for a Champions League finish, but the Seagulls’ European hopes may be extinguished by the time we visit the Amex Stadium, while the Eagles will either be jubilant or crestfallen when they come to Anfield, depending on the outcome of the FA Cup final.
The Gunners still have that heavyweight European tie against PSG to negotiate, along with a trip to the newly-crowned champions and a home clash against a Newcastle side hunting down a top-five finish, so they could easily fall even further behind Slot’s side.
After all the accusations from the likes of Keys, wouldn’t it be quite the response to win the Premier League by a record points margin this season!
