Currently, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal are in the top four and each is persevering in their belief that come May, it will be them lifting the Premier League trophy. Chelsea are the early pace-setters and although there is daylight between them and Jurgen Klopp’s Reds, there are a few reasons why Liverpool fans can be confident we’re about to catch Antonio Conte’s Blues.
Home Advantage
When the fixture list came out before the commencement of this season, a few Liverpool fans would have been worried about the tricky start Klopp’s men had to negotiate. Facing Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea in the first few fixtures is not what anyone would want to build momentum and accumulate some early points on the board. Yet The Reds came through these early tests only dropping points at White Hart Lane and now these teams must come to Anfield and try and get a result. Although research from money-saving website Voucherbox has revealed that Arsenal and Chelsea fans can actually save £183 and £209 respectively per season by going to away games (as opposed to home games), they will not be confident of leaving Anfield with the result they require. And in case you’re wondering, that’s unique to those teams, all other clubs have to spend more to go to away games, although it depends on the team.
The one setback from those early games was the defeat to Burnley at Turf Moor which came about due to a poor performance, but also because the construction of Main Stand necessitated Liverpool playing away from home. Consequently, Liverpool have more home games in the calendar than any of their title rivals and although being at home doesn’t guarantee three points, Klopp has put in a lot of work to make Anfield a fortress once again and we should be confident that home comforts will result in points.
First Eleven
Although players such as Divock Origi and Ragnar Klavan have come in to perform above expectation, Liverpool have suffered from injuries to key players this season. Klopp hasn’t been able to field his preferred attacking personnel since the 6-1 destruction of Watford and when Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino, Adam Lallana and Sadio Mane are all on the pitch Liverpool can be unplayable. Although Mane won’t be back in a Liverpool shirt for some time, the return of Coutinho is a huge boost and Joel Matip’s return should sure things up at the back, though that is dependent on his international clearance.
Combined with the boost provided by returning players is the improvement in performance now that Simon Mignolet is Liverpool’s number one once again. It feels like Klopp doesn’t trust the Belgian and can often be seen angrily gesticulating from the touchline when the keeper’s distribution lets him down, but he’s much improved and we can be hopeful that the keeper calamities are in the past.
Fall Out
It wasn’t long ago that Chelsea fell apart and became the worst ever Premier League defending champions – and there are signs that things might fall apart again. Whatever your take on the Diego Costa situation is, there is no doubt that things aren’t rosy at Chelsea’s Cobham Training Centre. Chelsea have proved that they can cope without Costa, but all the commotion can’t be good preparation for playing Premier League football. Chelsea wouldn’t be the first team to let training ground squabbles effect their form on the pitch. It might be clutching at straws to hope that Chelsea will implode and throw away the opportunity of winning the Premier League, but there are some big personalities in their dressing room and they’ve shown in the past that discontentment off the pitch can make Chelsea players effectively down tools and lose football matches. It’s not something Liverpool can rely on and all fans would want to win the title on merit, not because the other team pressed the self-destruct button.
Chelsea remain the strong favourites to take the title, as they have always gone on to win after being at the top at Christmas. Yet this race is far from over and the above reasons should give hope to all Liverpool fans that everything could be about to change at the top as we enter into crucial fixtures which could see the Premier League title head to Anfield.
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