From predicting Liverpool to finish outside the top four at the outset of the season, Gary Neville has now given his forecast as to when (not if) the Reds will clinch the Premier League title.
After beating Southampton 3-1 on Saturday and seeing Arsenal held to a draw by Manchester United a day later, Arne Slot’s side currently sit 15 points clear at the summit and need just 16 more to guarantee their 20th top-flight crown.
We don’t play again in the division until the beginning of April, but with five league matches that month, it’s plausible that LFC could go into May confirmed as champions – and that’s what the Sky Sports pundit believes will happen.
Neville predicts when Liverpool will clinch Premier League title
Speaking on the Gary Neville podcast on Sunday after the Gunners’ 1-1 draw at Old Trafford, the 50-year-old can only see the gap between Liverpool and the rest widening rather than being reduced.
He said: “I think they’ll be so focused. They’ll have little scares like [going behind v Southampton], that just happens, but I think they’ve got enough confidence within them, the way in which momentum’s going their way, and the others are well behind them. They’re dipping further behind, let alone catching them up.
“I think Liverpool have got this in the bag. They’ll win it in April. I don’t think it’ll go to May.”
What must Liverpool do to confirm Premier League title by 30 April?
Is it really just two-and-a-half weeks ago that, following Liverpool’s draw at Aston Villa, Arsenal had the chance to close the gap to five points had they won at home to West Ham?
Ever since Mikel Arteta’s side lost that game and the Reds triumped at Manchester City the following day, it’s felt as though that’d be the defining weekend in the Premier League title race (Paul Merson certainly seemed to think so), and the top two’s subsequent results further underline that belief.
If the current leaders win each of their top-flight matches in April and the Gunners drop any points before the end of next month, Neville’s prediction that LFC will go into May as newly-crowned champions would turn out to be accurate.
The absolute earliest that Liverpool could clinch the title is on 6 April – which’d equal their 2019/20 feat of making it official with seven games still to play – but that’d require us to win at home to Everton and away to Fulham, and Arsenal would need to lose each of their next three league fixtures.
That particular scenario doesn’t seem likely even with the north Londoners flagging and the Reds about to go more than six months unbeaten in the division.
However, when the debate isn’t whether LFC will win the Premier League but rather the date on which they could make it official (something that Neville described as a ‘painful thought‘), it goesn’t get a whole lot better than that for everyone of a Liverpool persuasion!
