Why leaders Liverpool can still be caught

Alex Keble looks at why leaders Liverpool can still be caught by the chasing pack.

The title race is over.

Anxious Liverpool supporters aside, that’s been the consensus for a surprisingly long time now, as if a six-point lead is unassailable when their rivals still have 54 points left to play for; as if there’s no history of teams this far ahead falling away in the spring.

At the end of December 1997, Arsenal trailed Manchester United by 13 points. In late January 1996, Man Utd were 12 points behind Newcastle United. Both won the title.

And at the end of December 2019, almost exactly five years ago, Manchester City were 10 points behind Liverpool, only to beat Jurgen Klopp’s side to the trophy.

There is every reason to believe there will be twists and turns ahead, that much is clear from a cursory glance at the fixture list: Liverpool have plenty of tough away encounters left while Arsenal have already played almost all of theirs.

Liverpool’s away fixtures could see them slip

Lest we forget Liverpool are actually only six points clear, their match in hand, away to Everton, is by no means three points in the bag.

Victory at Goodison Park, where Liverpool lost 2-0 last April, is not a foregone conclusion. Merseyside derbies never are, and especially not the final one before Everton’s stadium move.

And that’s just one of Liverpool’s difficult away fixtures still to come.

Liverpool’s next five PL away matches

Seven of their remaining 10 away matches are against current top-10 teams, which doesn’t include travelling to 11th-place Brentford, who have the second-best home record in the league, behind Liverpool.

It is very possible, then, that Liverpool will drop more points in the second half of the season than the first simply because of how the fixtures have fallen.

Match difficulty could change as Liverpool’s defence wobbles

What’s more, Liverpool are unlikely to be quite so fortunate in facing opponents at their lowest ebb, a factor that cannot be ignored up to this point.

The statistical consistency here is extraordinary. Across the 14 Premier League matches Liverpool have won this season, 11 of their opponents failed to win their previous match, with the only exceptions (aside from Ipswich Town, whom they faced in Matchweek 1) being Brentford, West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur.

Surely Liverpool won’t continue to be quite so lucky with the timing of their fixtures over the next few months, although even if they are, there is a sense that Arne Slot’s team are slowing down a little.

Liverpool have won only three of their last six Premier League matches, earning 12 points in total, winning the same number of points as AFC Bournemouth and Arsenal, and fewer than Nottingham Forest (18) and Newcastle (15).

It’s hardly a disaster, but it’s a sign that things may nott stay quite so rosy.

Slot’s side conceded 11 goals in those six matches and kept just one clean sheet, while the 1-0 defeat to a depleted Spurs in the EFL Cup on Wednesday had all the hallmarks of a team just leaving a purple patch.

Liverpool looked leggy and a little disjointed in attack. It could be a one-off, but with the defence starting to concede more goals and with tougher fixtures on the horizon, it offers hope to the chasing pack.

That’s especially true, given that Liverpool have conceded the first goal on seven occasions and have recovered 13 points from losing positions, the second-most in the league.

If they continue to go 1-0 down in matches, and if fatigue is indeed increasing, Liverpool will start dropping points.

Arsenal’s record is the same as last year – and difficult matches are behind them

Arsenal will back themselves to capitalise on any slip, no matter how much noise there’s been about a drop in their standards this season.

The stats tell us it’s a myth. Arsenal have won 40 points from 20 Premier League matches, exactly the same record as at this stage last season, when they went on to collect 89 points.

Better yet, the fixtures appear to be in their favour now.

Arsenal are unbeaten at Emirates Stadium this season – having won nine and drawn three – and, on home form alone, are two points behind Liverpool, having played one fewer fixture.

To make up the gap, then, they need to improve their away form – and Mikel Arteta’s side should expect that to happen through 2025.

Of their nine remaining away matches, only two are against sides currently in the top 10: Forest and Liverpool.

By late February, when Arsenal travel to the City Ground, Forest are likely to be in worse form than at their current peak, while Liverpool – in their third-from-last match of the season, in May – could be a title decider.

This is all caveated, of course, by Bukayo Saka’s injury. But with Ethan Nwaneri stepping up – although he is now out with a groin issue – and Martin Odegaard back, Arteta will expect his rock-solid defence to see them through.

Can Chelsea, Man City, or Forest mount a challenge?

“Right now it’s not impossible as there are no impossibles in football,” Bernardo Silva said recently. “But right now Man City’s completely out of the title race.”

It certainly looks that way. City are 12 points behind Liverpool, having played a match more, so their only hope is an incredible sequence of wins.

They often perform better in the second halves of seasons, of course, but even if they won all of their final 18 matches they would end on 88 points, which has only been enough to win the league in three of the last 10 seasons.

Chelsea’s four-match winless run has dropped them suddenly far behind Liverpool, and yet we ought to acknowledge that if they can fall off that quickly, they could get back up just as fast.

It isn’t out of the question that Liverpool have their own similar spell, at which point Chelsea’s squad depth – not to mention the relative lack of pressure on such a young squad – could lift them unexpectedly back into the race.

And then there’s Forest, who currently sit on exactly the same points tally as Leicester City had at this stage of the 2015/16 season, with the Foxes going on to win the title.

Six wins a row has put Forest into a miracle-adjacent position, but nobody is really thinking of a Forest title – yet.

On Tuesday they host leaders Liverpool, having beaten them 1-0 at Anfield in September.

Victory for Nuno Espirito Santo would definitely put Forest in the title race, as well as bring Arsenal, at the very least, right back into it.

Don’t listen to anyone saying Liverpool can’t be caught. It isn’t over yet.