WITH the league title as good as won, the mind turns automatically to other issues, to what records this Liverpool side may set, to just how great they actually are. 35 points from their final 16 games of the season – they could actually afford four defeats – would be enough to take the record points tally from Manchester City but that alone feels slightly inadequate as a measure.
There are three main targets for Liverpool. The first is to win the title, and end those 30 years without. Would they rather have their Aguero Moment, face their neuroses head on and win it in a cathartic surge? Or is a procession better, casting off the disappointment of last season’s near miss, setting their jaws into the storm, and beating everybody in sight? Few probably care: either way, 64 points from 66 available is – already – a staggering achievement, one that means the league could be wrapped up by the end of March. But winning a league early is not in itself a sign of greatness: that particular record is held by Manchester United, who wrapped up the 2000-01 title on 14 April. They were a very good side, obviously, but that is not a campaign that lives in many memories.
The second is to become the second side, after Manchester City in 2017-18 to break 100 points. That is a rare enough achievement to remain a marker of greatness, although there are two slight caveats. The first is that that sort of accumulation of points, the stretching of the league, is a phenomenon taking place across Europe. The rich are getting richer, the gulf to the poorer getting bigger, and the super-clubs are becoming more dominant.
It’s true that Liverpool have spent only £70m net over the past four years – remarkable business to assemble a squad of this quality, particularly given the mess the club was in before the FSG takeover – but it’s also true that they have the seventh highest wage bill in the world, and that the gap between their wage bill and that of Manchester City, sixth in the list, is smaller than that between them and Chelsea who are eighth. (United are the only other Premier League club with a higher wage bill, which suggests just how badly they’ve been run).
It's almost certainly not going to happen but Liverpool can still match the 98-99 United treble, the 03-04 Arsenal Invincibles & the City 100 point campaign all in the same season.
Which confirms that Chelsea letting in only 15 goals in 2004-05 is the best one.
— Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) January 10, 2020
The other issue is the sense that this is an unusual Premier League season. While the likes of Leicester City and Wolves, and to a lesser extent Crystal Palace and Sheffield United, suggest a healthy middle-class, it’s also the case that Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal are weaker than they have been for some time. But then City picked up 198 points over the past two seasons and, while suffering poor recruitment and a key injury this season, are still an exceptional side. The best to be said, perhaps, is that beyond City there’s been a lot of average to beat.
And the third target is to become just the third side to go unbeaten through an entire campaign. That is perhaps the hardest of the three because it means there can’t be any slips, no freakish hammer-on-the-door-all-day games when a 40-yard volley suddenly flies in at the other end. And that will be particularly hard to guard against when the title is won and domestic intensity drops, particularly if the focus then shifts to Europe.
Europe, of course, is another issue. In 1977 and 1984, Liverpool did the double of league and European Cup. Although success in Europe requires an element of luck, there’s an argument that doubling up outweighs league domination, no matter how many points are racked up.
But all that’s based in statistics. There’s also the sight test. This Liverpool are thrilling. They play incredibly varied football, capable both of intricacy and directness, and they have a remarkable capacity for problem solving. They are physically dynamic and imposing, but there is also great intelligence to their pressing. There was a wildness to them at the start of the season but over the past couple of months that has increasingly become control. Their 4-0 win at Leicester was one of the most complete demolitions of a (decent) opponent imaginable.
Whatever doubts there may be about football’s financial structures (and the points inflation that may bring at the top end of leagues), whatever quibbles there are about the quality of the Premier League’s upper mid-tier this season, whatever shadow may be cast by an early Champions League exit, you only have to look at Liverpool to know they are a very great side. And if they are unbeaten centurion champions, their case is unanswerable.
