Premier League 24/25 - Is the title race now over - The Football Show analyse Liverpool following win over Man City

Now 11 points clear, 11 games to go. Liverpool's dreams of a first Premier League title in five years looking ever closer to becoming reality after their 2-0 win over Manchester City at the Etihad. Once again Mo Salah stole the show with a record-breaking goal and assist. No one saw us as a title contender when we started in the beginning of the season and I think no one in the world of football would have expected City not to be so close to the one that leads the league if they are not the one that leads the league. But we all know why, they had many injuries, they had a difficult period but again today you could see, although the result maybe doesn't show you that, but how good they are as a team and how difficult they are to play against. In every other league having a lead like this would be very comfortable except for this one because this league, every single game gives you a lot of challenges. The boys have worked every single day really hard to be where they are now and I hope and assume that they will keep doing that for three more months and let's see where we are now. There we go Liverpool now, 11-point lead. When the history books are written of this season, how pivotal, how big a step was that towards the Premier League title for Liverpool? I think it had been big. I think the result for Arsenal at the weekend almost allowed that to be that way. If Arsenal had won, put more pressure on Liverpool. I think that result at the Emirates just gave Liverpool a little bit more belief and a little bit more of a spring in the step to know that if they won this game that they could go on and obviously extend that lead at the top and almost not put the hands on the trophy but not be far off it. I still think he's right in what he says, honest thought. I think there's still things that can happen within the league but you just look at Arsenal's forward line or lack of a forward line you think, can they really mount a challenge? I don't think they can and when you look at Liverpool how they've performed yesterday under pressure, they were outstanding. Liverpool have done the double over City. Is this proof of the changing of the guard in the Premier League or are City just having an awful season and everything will be wonderful and rosy next campaign? I think certainly this season you can say that and that is due to a lot of factors from a Manchester City perspective, the injuries and things that they've had to try and overcome but Liverpool have been absolutely fantastic and I don't think, well I certainly didn't think at the start of the season it was going to be so smooth the transition from Jürgen Klopp to Arne Slott but I think watching yesterday it just looked like a title winning display, didn't it? There's so many sort of different things that you can pick out in terms of their performances of Mo Salah. You can say that the midfielders, the way that Gravenberg and McAllister, the way that they had to put in a real shift. I thought Van Dijk and Canarty were brilliant so there's lots of individual performances that you could pick out and praise but I just thought it was collectively as a team how they played and there's been so many times this season that we've said that individual performances have been brilliant but it's just how they play together and they had to put in a real shift yesterday. They had to work so hard off the ball. Defensively they had to be so solid and well organised and you could see at the end I think Szyboslaw was on the pitch just on his knees because he was absolutely shattered the effort that he had to put in. So yeah I think this season of course we've seen that the qualities of Liverpool but I think Manchester City you would say of course are going to come back at some point. Well I said wonderful. Before you start emailing or whatever people do now social media-ing in, Wonderful and Rosie was for Manchester City fans not for the league. When I said will everything be wonderful and rosy for Manchester City fans. Yes just clarifying. I can just hear it now. Right Liverpool you mentioned that they knew the Arsenal result obviously before they went into this game but they had drawn two of their previous three. It shows the professionalism because they still had to go and win this game. Despite knowing what Arsenal had done the tendency might have been all right we got this and sorted it out. So that professionalism Gary Neville said it in the commentary there with the phases they went through in the game and then scored the goal. Yeah I think the big thing as well is that there's an added pressure because everyone's saying that Manchester City are in decline and Liverpool are the sort of the heir to the throne if you like. So they need to go and show their quality and they should win the game quite comfortably on current form but it's not as easy as that. City were never going to roll over and just have the bellies tickled. It wasn't going to be just one of those games where they're like yeah go on on you go. It was always going to be a difficult game at times. City actually started okay in the game but I think what we've seen in the last couple of weeks is a little bit of an element and Andrew Robertson spoke about it we talked about it on the show a couple of weeks ago where against Wolves he said they were nervous and the nerves will creep in because it's what they've been looking for for five years. They've been trying to win that title they want to win it in front of their own fans. There's an element of will this come about again next year? Will City be as bad next year? Will Arsenal strengthen? There's a lot of unknowns as to next year so this might be the best opportunity they get in a long time so there will be an element of nerves kicking in. I think one thing the other thing that we spoke about on the show time and time again is the buzzword around Arnold Slot is control. How they control games and how they take it at their own pace. I think just the last couple of weeks that had got away from them a little bit and games have become a little bit more like basketball games and Liverpool didn't have full control in those games for long periods. Yesterday they got that control back they sat in a shape when they had to and they were organised within that shape and they said to Manchester City we don't think you're good enough to break us down at the moment and that was proved right but when we're going to counter-attack when we're going to counter-attack at pace and we're going to show our quality on the break and they showed that side of the game it was an all-round completed performance yesterday from Liverpool from front to back but I think that's what's impressed me the way that they can play different ways can't they that's been impressive like even within a game you know so they can do their from back to front so quickly and cause teams so many problems the way they go forward but they can control things and keep possession and play through the thirds and if they need to sit back they can do that so the way that they can adapt to different teams whether that's game to game or within a game that's been really impressive I think the big thing is and you just touched on it previously when you were talking was no one put Liverpool in a title race but it wasn't because of the team and what Slott has inherited it was because we didn't know much about him yeah we're a bit like well we concentrate solely on the Premier League and we see Champions League football but we only really watch the top teams so it was a bit can he cope within the league will he how will he adapt I think when a lot of managers come in we know a little bit more about them he was a bit of an unknown and I think when you look at why he was linked to the Chelsea job in the past the Tottenham job he didn't feel that they were right for him at the time but then he's coming to come in we probably should have done a little bit more groundwork and gone okay what is it that why is everyone courting him why does everyone want to follow him and think that he's the right fit for their football club well now we're seeing it because of that when we speak about a lot of things on the show but one of the one of the things we always talk about is is is a manager adaptable within a game can he change his formation can he change his system or his way of playing to suit the opposition he plays he does it more than anyone it's incredible how many times they adjust what they're doing within a game and the one that the one game that sticks out to me was that the Liverpool versus Fulham game at home where they had a man sent off and he tried six or seven things within the game to get it right and then he got it right and he was like right there you go and I was watching thinking like a lot of managers will try one thing it doesn't work they go oh don't know where else to turn here he's like so adaptable within games okay so 11 point lead 11 to go at the moment they're on course is a thing to win the title at home to Arsenal so what stops them if we have a look at what's remaining for them it might give you a little twist because these are the fixtures they've got left remember they're a reverse of what they have ahead of them but this is what they did earlier in the season so they dropped points to Newcastle Everton Fulham and Arsenal that's eight points dropped still be enough to win them the title but of course they're the other way around for this one I was going to say three of them were away from home and that's the big thing is you're looking at the games at home Liverpool are so strong at home only lost against Nottingham Forest this season that tells they should win the league purely on the home form alone and yeah they should do it it needs Arsenal as well to be perfect again until the end of the season to win every game to really put them under pressure I think Arsenal slip up a couple of times whether it's a draw or a loss but Liverpool should now win it yeah I've heard some people say complacency and I just don't see that at all I've even now he's sort of saying look we're still taking it that one game at a time we're not saying that we've won it already despite that that gap he said many things can happen in the Premier League and there is still a lot of football to be played I think the other thing that you could talk about is the injury so if they get injuries to key players could that then have an impact because we've saw it with with Arsenal we've saw it with with Manchester City so I think yes the gap at this moment in time looks too big with Arsenal's struggles with that that forward line you can't see them catching and being perfect the other thing you have to look at towards the end of the season is you'd love to rotate but you can't as much so in the start of the season Champions League games where you can look at certain games and go we could rest a couple of players here and there whereas now you've got Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League you're not going to rotate players against them you've got Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final you're not going to rotate players against them and then there's the element of we want to get this done we want to get it done as quick as possible so how how much are you going to rotate so that's where it's a little bit different towards the end of the season how he manages that side of things yeah that that Arsenal one that'd be highlighted by Liverpool fans is obviously considering Arsenal win every game yeah yeah which is not a given it wouldn't seemingly be a football show without talking about Mo Salah 15th goal involvements now this season for him right okay seems invaluable to them it seems incredible that his future isn't sorted it's astonishing isn't it that we're still sort of in February going into March and we're saying why isn't it sorted why is it not being done I think what he's done though is just being phenomenal I know the guys on Super Sunday yesterday were talking about Ballon d'Or his numbers are stacking I mean when you're in February and you're hitting those numbers that is quite incredible and they always talk about well you've got to score goal it's sorry win trophies to be able to do that well Liverpool should and probably will win the Premier League then if they go on to compete in the Champions League as well and possibly win that if they win the Carabao Cup then he will have had a very impressive season he's got to be in contention for the Ballon d'Or there's no one really that you look at the moment yes Mbappe he's played well now if he has a good run until the end of the season and scores goals within the Champions League people will then look at him in his first season at Real Madrid and say well look what he did um going there in his first season but those numbers are astonishing but from a Liverpool point of view they have to get him tied down they have to get the the contract sorted in a word yes or no because we've got to move on does he stay yes okay that was good