Why Liverpool will topple Man City and win the Premier League this season

Manchester City cantered to the Premier League title last season and they’re the runaway favourites to win it this time around, but they have a significant thorn that is ready to bury itself deep in their side, and that thorn is painted in the red of Liverpool.

The Reds may not have been the closest challengers to City’s title surge last season, but they did appear to be the one team that the champions genuinely struggled with. Pep Guardiola’s men lost their unbeaten Premier League record to Liverpool at Anfield in January, before losing home and away to Jurgen Klopp’s boys in the Champions League quarter-finals.

In the interest of fairness, City did thump Liverpool 5-0 at the start of the season, but the subsequent three contests saw the Cityzens concede nine and lose all three of them. Klopp worked out a way to deal with City, which was a puzzle that no other manager in the land could solve.

But despite this, City finished the season 19 points clear at the top of the table and a full 25 points clear of Liverpool. They lost just twice in the league and drew four, ending on 100 points having scored a monstrous 106 goals.
So why can this be different this time around? How can Liverpool possibly be able to bridge such a gigantic gap by the summer of 2019? It is a huge ask, but they have taken some significant steps in the right direction. So many steps that 25 points just might be achievable, if they even need to take that many at all.

Rarely has a team had such an impressive transfer window as Liverpool have enjoyed over the summer of 2018. Whilst most teams were hampered by the World Cup and put off by exorbitant transfer fees, the Reds ploughed on and got some serious deals done.

Naby Keita had already been agreed the previous year, but the arrivals of Alisson and Fabinho were sensational bits of business since the last campaign ended.

A major fault in Liverpool’s game last season was clearly their inept goalkeepers, with Loris Karius costing them the Champions League final, and Simon Mignolet long since having been deemed even worse than the German. Something needed to be done and the club stepped up to the plate and spent big on one of the most highly rated keepers on the planet. Problem solved.

After Emre Can had flown the Anfield nest, they also needed a replacement in the midfield engine room and, again, the club did not mess about. Out came the big bucks and in came Fabinho, with little fuss, no transfer saga, the board just did what they had to do and improved the squad in a crucial position. The Brazilian still has to prove himself in the Premier League but it is hard to see him not being an improvement on Can, Jordan Henderson or Georginio Wijnaldum.

Keita may turn out to be the best of the three big signings and the key to helping Liverpool turn their 12 draws from last season into more regular wins. He is not going to score the goals of a Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino or Sadio Mane, but he is going to work the spaces and create the chances for that deadly front three on a level that the likes of Can, Wijnaldum, Henderson, Milner and Oxlade-Chamberlain could not do.

They are all fine players but Keita is a step up from their ability levels and he will be weaving webs in opposition halves all over the country this season. He may not come away with the goals, or even assists to prove his worth, but there is no doubt he will have been involved somewhere in an absolute truckload of moves that have led to goals.

Another new arrival on Merseyside is Xherdan Shaqiri, who won’t be starting as many games as the other three big names, but could prove to be a very canny bit of business from the Reds. The Swiss maverick is capable of absolutely sensational things on his day, but has looked under-motivated in the past couple of years at Stoke. Back on the big stage at a massive club and Shaqiri will be a real threat and an extremely useful addition to a squad that will need rotating over the campaign.

Liverpool’s strength in depth in midfield has now reached the stage it needs to under Klopp. The German demands an extremely high energy brand of football and it is very taxing on a squad. The Reds now have a squad with such quality throughout that they can mix things up against the lesser lights of the Premier League and still field a fantastic team, with the likes of Shaqiri, Adam Lallana and Wijnaldum coming into the fold.

So we can expect an awful lot more from Liverpool this season, but the Reds will also need a fairly meaningful drop off from the champions, something we can expect. City achieved incredible things last campaign, but the chances of them replicating the 100 point mark are extremely thin. Simply looking at the history of the Premier League illustrates how unlikely it is.

Man City’s 100-point total broke the record for the most points in a Premier League season, storming past Chelsea’s previous high standard of 95. Clearly this is a special team, but for them to get near that enormous total again will be almost impossible for them. We can expect a lot from them, but not that much.

City have not really strengthened significantly over the summer, adding Riyad Mahrez to their arsenal, but that is all. It is hard to argue that they will be better this season than last, with the majority of their stars coming off a hard World Cup summer and motivation potentially not what it was last year. The old adage is that it is much harder to defend what you have won than claim it in the first place does tend to come true. City conquered the mountain last season, can they bring themselves to do it all again?

Pep Guardiola’s team are not going to completely fall off a cliff, they are a fantastic outfit. However, they will not achieved what they did last time around. With a couple more defeats and a few more draws they will become much more catchable for the chasing pack, and most notably, Liverpool. The Reds would not be able to bridge a 25-point gap simply by improving themselves, but they could certainly make up 12 or 15 points thanks to the signings they have made.

Liverpool have City’s number, they have shown that in the last three matches between the sides. With the improvements they have made to their squad they will not be slipping up against the smaller sides as they have done in the last couple of seasons. As the Reds surge and City struggle to maintain the standards of last season, it could be a very swift changing of the guard at the top of the table.

Back Liverpool to win the Premier League at 10/3 with William Hill