No Title Race Necessary: Liverpool Were Dominant This Season

No Title Race Necessary: Liverpool Were Dominant This Season

Chandler Milligan

Numbers don’t lie, and as much as you may want to bury your head in the sand to avoid reality, you can’t.

Liverpool has won the English Premier League again.

When Jürgen Klopp’s star-studded Reds broke their thirty-year drought to lift the 2019/20 EPL title, nobody, not even the biggest Liverpool-haters, could deny that they were the best team in England.

A 99-point campaign to comfortably seal the title, after somehow finishing runners-up the season before with 97 points.

It was a long-running joke that the world would end if Liverpool won the league, and when the COVID-19 pandemic struck mid-season, it looked like the world really would end.

Or Liverpool’s world, at least.

The season was suspended for three months, and despite resuming under closed doors in June 2020, Liverpool maintained their pre-pandemic momentum and secured the title with seven games to spare.

A lot of fans put an asterisk over that title because of the three-month pause, and the fact that the remainder of the season was played behind closed doors like a training match.

In fact, despite the emotions of winning a first English title in 30 years, the players and fans weren’t even able to celebrate together due to social distancing protocols.

Lifting a trophy for an empty stadium isn’t how a title of that magnitude should be celebrated.

This weekend, the Reds finally put that asterisk to bed, celebrating a jubilant 5-1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at a packed-out Anfield to secure their 20th title in style!

Claiming the crown with 82 points, Arne Slot’s side have dominated this Premier League campaign, leaving Arsenal 15 points behind in the dust.

For Arteta’s Gunners, this will be their third consecutive season as runners-up after an injury-laden and complicated campaign.

While there’s no arguing that Liverpool are worthy winners, it’s no secret that the usually high-calibre Premier League has lacked its competitive cutting edge this season.

After winning four consecutive EPL titles, many expected Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City to be in the driver’s seat, fighting for an incredible five-peat, but they’ve suffered a tumultuous campaign that has them clinging to the top four.

There’s no point in talking about Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur this year.

Chelsea started really strongly under Enzo Maresca, and with Cole Palmer’s blistering early form, things looked promising.

But that faded, and now they’re hovering in fifth place, vying for a UCL spot.

Newcastle United have certainly looked the part this season.

They defeated Liverpool 2-1 in the EFL Cup Final to secure their first major trophy since 1955, and currently sit in third.

But they never showed enough to be taken seriously in the title race.

Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest have punched well above their weight this season, with Nottingham still firmly poised to earn a top-four finish.

Arsenal have undoubtedly been the best team behind Liverpool this season, and behind each of the Champions across the last three seasons, but even they never looked like catching the Reds.

The title race was effectively over in late February, when a loss at home to West Ham and a draw on the road to Nottingham Forest gave Liverpool a 12-point lead.

Overall, it hasn’t been the prettiest campaign for anybody outside of Anfield.

Almost all of the traditional ‘Top 6’ have underperformed compared to last season, and at the opposite end of the table, the three newly promoted sides condemned themselves straight back down to the EFL Championship after equally hollow campaigns.

In fact, the last time we saw such a collectively ordinary Premier League campaign was when Leicester City stunned the world with their 2015/16 EPL title.

Arne Slot’s Liverpool are still worthy winners, and it’s not their fault that their opponents all took their eyes off the prize.

With four games remaining, the Reds could still reach a points tally of 94, which would have been enough to win each of the previous four EPL campaigns prior to their own 99-point season.

The bottom line is that Liverpool’s 20th title isn’t just the outcome of a failed season from everybody else.

Arne Slot’s men have more than earned the title.

The stats don’t lie, Liverpool have been balling.

Not only is Arne Slot only the fifth manager to win an EPL title in his first season, but his side is leading the rankings for goals, shots, shots on target, and expected goals (xG).

They have scored 80 goals this season, finding the back of the net in 33 of their 34 games.

Liverpool’s players, too, are having a season to remember.

Virgil Van Dijk has become the first Dutch player to captain a side to an English top-flight title, and Mohamed Salah is on the verge of eclipsing an all-time Premier League record.

With 46 goal involvements this season, the Egyptian King leads the league for both goals and assists, and is now only one goal contribution away from matching the record shared by Alan Shearer and Andrew Cole.

He has four games to do so.

Salah has also secured the record for a 38-game season, beating the 44 goals & assists achieved by Thierry Henry and Erling Haaland.

Say what you want about Liverpool, there is nothing casual about the way they conquered the English Premier League this year.

Outside of the Premier League, Liverpool made it to the EFL Cup Final, losing 2-1 to Newcastle United and were knocked stunningly out of the FA Cup in Round 4 after fielding a mixed-bag XI against Plymouth Argyle.

In the first edition of the UCL Table format, Liverpool finished first out of 36 teams, before exiting in the quarter-finals after an intense 1-1 aggregate tie with PSG that saw them lose 4-1 on penalties.

Overall, Liverpool have been dominant across all competitions this season, only losing by the finest of margins.

Their hearts were clearly on the Premier League, and they made no mistake in doing what was necessary to bring the crown back to Anfield.

For the Liverpool faithful and the loyal group of players who served under Klopp and have soared under Slot, they can celebrate a brilliantly earned EPL title together at last.

The challenge now will be defending it.