There May Be a Premier League Title Race After All

With Liverpool doing all it could to stay in the mix while multiple stars were at the Africa Cup of Nations, it returns to full strength with a chance to keep things interesting.

The theory was that Liverpool’s season would reach a crisis point in January when the Africa Cup of Nations deprived the club of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Naby Keïta. But Liverpool has not lost since the Cup of Nations began and, with its African stars returning, it has emerged over the past couple of months as the only side with a chance of disrupting Manchester City’s march to a fourth Premier League title in five years.

It may turn out that the crucial period of this season was actually late December when, with City reeling off win after win, Liverpool drew at Tottenham and Chelsea and lost at Leicester, a result that looks even more bizarre in hindsight than it felt at the time. That clutch of fixtures around Christmas, advantaging clubs with the biggest squads, can often prove crucial, and it may be it was even more so this season with all the disruption caused by the coronavirus omicron variant.

The result is that before Liverpool faced Leicester again on Thursday, the gap to reach Man City was 12 points. That was a bit misleading, though, with City having played two more matches. Liverpool beat Leicester, 2–0, on a double from Diogo Jota. If it then wins its other game in hand and beats City in their meeting at the Etihad on April 9, then the gap could be reduced to three and, just maybe, there could be a title race again.

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Those, admittedly, are pretty big ifs. Just because Mané and Salah are back after having played in the Cup of Nations final does not mean they will hit top form immediately. As was seen at the beginning of the season with a number of the English players who reached the Euro 2020 final, there can often be a hangover after a major tournament, particularly if there has been a great emotional finale.

Salah had, by his standards, a poor Cup of Nations, too often isolated by Egypt’s weirdly negative tactics, and he must be frustrated having lost a second final in five years. In comments made this week, Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp conveyed the "disappointment" that Salah was still feeling upon his return, adding that "everybody could see he still has the final in his mind." Salah received a raucous welcome from the supporters at Anfield when making his immediate return off the bench on Thursday.

For Mané, meanwhile, the feeling must be the exact opposite. He was his country’s best player, and while he missed a penalty during regular time in the final, he went on to score the decisive kick in the shootout. While Salah came straight home on Liverpool’s jet, Mané went to join the celebrations in Dakar, and quite rightly so—after you’ve inspired your country to its first major trophy, you have every right to enjoy it. 

"We said it's such a big thing. Obviously everybody could see that celebration in Senegal and we didn't want to stress anybody and ask for bringing Sadio earlier back, so they should just enjoy it for themselves and come back as early as possible," Klopp said.

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If it were to take time for both to reset and readjust to the club game, it would hardly be surprising, particularly as the style of both Senegal and Egypt is so different from that of Liverpool.

But then there is the issue of City. Just because Liverpool has not lost ground at a time when many thought it would does not mean City is about to start frittering points. It had won 12 in a row before a draw against Southampton, a club whose approach often seems to cause City problems. No manager who has faced Pep Guardiola anywhere near as often has such a good record against him as Klopp, but still City has lost just one of its last eight to Liverpool. It has not lost at home to Liverpool in league play since 2015, when Manuel Pellegrini was still in charge.

And City may consider that, from its perspective, it had a good Cup of Nations, with Riyad Mahrez coming back earlier than expected after Algeria’s elimination in the group stage. He has already scored three times in two games since his return. The dynamic of seasons involving Guardiola sides is already well established: Perhaps they drop points early on, or toward the end once the title is wrapped up and the focus shifts to Europe, but through the heart of the season his teams are remorseless.

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And of course it helps that this City not merely has extraordinary resources but has used them sensibly to build a formidable squad. Liverpool simply isn’t that well financed and so it always occupies the role of, by comparison, anyhow, plucky challenger—even if it has just landed Colombian star Luis Díaz from Porto for an initial fee of $50 million that could reportedly reach $67 million. It probably would have wanted to wait until the summer before signing a long-term target, who presumably is seen as Mané’s ultimate replacement, but it was forced to act by interest from Tottenham. Whether he is a good signing will be seen, but he is at least a player the club had been monitoring for some time.

Liverpool tends to spend well but cautiously, and that places it at an understandable disadvantage; how, after all can you compete with a state? For those who want the drama of a real title race, the best that can be hoped for, at least for now, is that Liverpool’s form over the next couple of months is good enough that the championship is still in the balance when it goes to the Etihad.