WE'RE too early in the season for squeaky bum time, which, under Premier League legislation, can only occur once the clocks have gone forward, but make no mistake, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham (who as we’ll see, are very much in this) are now ensconced in the run-in, the series of games that will decide who wins the Premier League in 2018-19.
If a league season is actually a marathon and not a sprint then running a negative split (i.e. better in the second half) is a rare occurrence. Only three times in Premier League history has a team top at Christmas gone on to gather more points per game in the subsequent matches, and, counter-intuitively, two of those instances have seen the team, Liverpool in both cases, fail to win the title.
Generally, even the best teams will fade a bit in the late winter and spring. A sprinter who appears to speed up in the closing seconds of the 100 metres is in fact just losing speed more slowly than his rivals. Could the league actually be both a marathon and a sprint?
Of course, the world we are in is one where dropping points is becoming rarer. Last season Manchester City were only 14 points short of collecting the maximum amount available from 38 games. As the table shows, there has been a steady decline in the average number of points dropped by league champions from 1900 onwards, an illustration of the increased disparity between the top and the rest.
We are a long way from 1954-55 when, based on the three points for a win rule, Chelsea dropped a record 54 points on their way to their first-ever title. A run of just three wins in 14 games in the autumn did not prevent the Blues ending the season top of the table, and English top-flight history is littered with examples of teams making successful late surges, from Liverpool in 1981-82 (in the bottom half of the table as 1982 dawned but champions by May) to Manchester United’s remorseless pursuits of Newcastle in 1995-96 and Arsenal in 2002-03.
That Newcastle collapse in 1995-96 is the most famous modern squandering of a seemingly watertight lead, with the 4-3 defeat to Liverpool the perpetual moment of shame, even though it was merely the fourth defeat in six games, a spell that started with a surprise 2-0 loss at West Ham in February. That game marked the second appearance of Faustino Asprilla for Newcastle, a player whose introduction to the leaders’ squad has frequently been cited as the moment Kevin Keegan’s team lost the plot.
Yet no player in Premier League history has assisted as many goals after seven games as Asprilla’s five, and he had chipped in with three goals by this point as well. Instead, a defence that had kept only nine clean sheets in 24 games before the Colombian’s arrival started shipping even more goals as the run-in progressed, a trend that shouldn’t apply to Liverpool this season, if they can keep Virgil van Dijk fit.
Ultimately, Newcastle finished just four points behind Manchester United despite losing home and away to Ferguson’s team. Collecting just a draw from one of those games would have made the pursuit significantly more difficult. In this context, Riyad Mahrez’s late penalty miss at Anfield this season might turn out to be the key moment in the title race.
On this day in 1989: Liverpool 0 Arsenal 2. Arsenal won the league at Anfield. Alan Smith’s goal gave him 23 goals in 36 league games before Michael Thomas scored the winner right at the end. “It’s up for grabs now”. pic.twitter.com/aaysS0OI2E
— #OnThisDay in Arsenal history (@ArsenalOTD) May 26, 2018
In early May this year Arsenal completing their unbeaten season in 2003-04 will be closer to Michael Thomas’s decisive goal at Anfield in 1989 than it is to the present day. 15 years without a league title is a long time but of the close misses in the subsequent seasons, 2007-08 remains arguably the best chance the club had of giving Arsene Wenger a fourth crown.
Like Newcastle in 1996, this collapse started with an innocuous-looking away trip in February, at Birmingham in this case. Eduardo’s grim injury and William Gallas sitting motionless on the pitch at full-time are timeless images but the truth is that Eduardo had mustered just four goals and seven shots on target in 16 appearances before the Birmingham game, and despite the two dropped points, Arsenal were still three clear after this match.
I don’t mean to go full-Keegan, but I genuinely would love it if we beat them today, LOVE it pic.twitter.com/e5inzTG5rX
— Scarlet Fever '72 (@ScarletFever72) January 5, 2019
In reality, taking one point from two games against Gareth Southgate’s struggling Middlesbrough team was bad, but even worse was losing away to Chelsea and Manchester United, who would finish second and first respectively (and play in the only all-English Champions League final in the same season) in March and April. A draw in each would have seen the title go down to United and Arsenal’s goal difference, while Arsenal could have lost at Stamford Bridge, won at Old Trafford and ended as champions. Instead, Owen Hargreaves’ winner (both his second and final ever Premier League goal) effectively eliminated Arsenal from another title race.
All of which suggests that there are two key dates remaining in this season’s Premier League campaign: March 30 when Tottenham travel to Anfield and April 20 when Mauricio Pochettino’s team travel to the Etihad. Crucially, Tottenham are currently putting in one of the best-ever seasons away from home (13 domestic away wins by early January), so not only can the London side play kingmakers, they could yet be the ultimate beneficiaries in a run-in that promises to be one of the Premier League’s best yet.
