Not As Predicted

By AM Saturday, March 1, 2025

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Anthony McIntyre ⚽ One of those fairly infrequent occasions when being proved wrong brings considerable satisfaction. 

What it does to the neurons firing in the brain, Viagra is said to do to a different part of the male anatomy. Uplifting indeed.

Last week when Liverpool traveled to the Etihad to play Manchester City, after initially feeling they would draw, I came to the conclusion that they would lose followed by a draw at home to Newcastle three days later. The team had stuttered and stumbled so often since the start of the year that it seemed to have reached a wall that would prove insurmountable, one that it could not climb because it showed all the sluggishness of an engine running on fumes.

Meanwhile Arsenal stood poised to overtake them. None of it proved to be. Liverpool simply got their act together and put both City and the Geordies to the sword. To the surprise of Alan Shearer and others, Arne Slot has guided his players to the cusp of winning the title relying on the players who, under Jurgen Klopp last season, first faded then failed catastrophically, coming third in a two horse race. 

Liverpool now have a commanding lead of thirteen points which even I find impossible to believe they could squander. It is mathematically possible that the Reds could lose all four of their next league games without Arsenal dropping a single point. Yet that would still leave the Gunners a point behind  in the title race. Liverpool would then have to lose or draw a further game while the Londoners would need to win their remaining fixtures. That is most unlikely to happen.

My Liverpool buds, Andrew and Paddy have consistently pointed out the flaw in my bleak perspective: it took no account of the strong likelihood that Arsenal would drop points along the way. My tunnel vision kept my gaze focused on the slippages only of Liverpool. Mea Culpa - that was indeed a poor calculation. While Andrew spotted the tendency for the team to segue into draw mode, and was emphatic about the need for Slot to pull it up by the bootstraps, he never lost confidence in the ability of the Anfield men to do the business. Likewise with Paddy who believed Arsenal had flatlined, making their wall even more daunting than the one faced by the Anfield outfit. That much was borne out when Arteta's side lost at home to West Ham and then drew away to Nottingham Forest in crucial games.  Liverpool might have lost some of their shine as a serious title challenger but with Arsenal there is no shining a turd.

As it now stands, the Gunners will have to do what has never been done before in Premiership history. Twenty seven games into the season, there is an Arsenal precedent for comebacks. In the 1997-98 campaign, the then Highbury based side trailed Manchester United by a margin of nine points. Over the remaining eleven games Arsenal made up the deficit to clinch the title. The unvarnished truth facing Martin Odegaard and his teammates was summed up by one observer: they 'are now closer to 10th placed Aston Villa than they are to the league leaders.' No other side has reversed such a deficit. 

Contrary to my expectations for the post-Klopp era, providing I don't pop my clogs before the end of May, Liverpool will secure yet another league title in my lifetime, their twentieth in total. Mount Improbable is about to be scaled by the men from the Mersey while the challengers struggle to keep afloat in the dark waters of the Thames.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.