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This season’s title race has arguably been the best title race in the premier league era. We are in the month of March and there are still 4 teams with a realistic chance of winning the title Chelsea, Arsenal,Liverpool and Manchester City.
After talking about Chelsea in my last article, The EPL title contenders-Chelsea, in this article I’m going to discuss Liverpool’s season. Liverpool are sitting in second place, four points off the top of the table with a game in hand. Liverpool’s season started off with confusion over Suarez’s future. It was a time of uncertainty for the club and they fought tooth and nail to keep Suarez despite interest from other clubs and Suarez’s own desire to leave the club for Champions league football.
While all of this was going on around the club they quietly went about getting wins and got themselves into a good position without Suarez. Daniel Sturridge was in superb form at the beginning of the season,scoring four goals in the first four games, helping the fans forget about the Suarez saga. When Suarez finally came back from his ban the Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers, employed a 3-5-2 formation to accommodate both Suarez and Sturridge as strikers.
After this point Liverpool football club became the Suarez show. Some of the goals he scored were absolutely magical. With Sturridge supporting him, Liverpool has the best striking partnership in England and arguably in all of Europe. This partnership, dubbed ‘SAS’, has contributed 42 goals towards Liverpool’s cause. Rodgers made them play attractive, possession based football which has caught everybody’s eye.
Liverpool did suffer from a slight dip in form which coincided with injuries for Gerrard and Sturridge but they always remained on the heels of the other title contenders. This also led to the Liverpool manager changing his formation from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 with a diamond in midfield. For most of the season all the football pundits never considered Liverpool as serious title contenders as they didn’t believe that Liverpool could go from 7th to 1st in one season.
It is true that they don’t have the same squad depth as Man City and Chelsea but the consistency of Gerrard coupled with the development of young players like Henderson and Sterling, under Rodgers, has made Liverpool a force to be reckoned with.
Liverpool during a training session
The high point of their season undoubtedly was their impressive 5-1 trashing of Arsenal at Anfield. Although there are certain frailties in their defense, they have shown they can outscore almost any team in the league. With their initial goal of getting into the top 4 now almost secured ,after their 3-0 win against Man Utd, they can now push on for the title.
The Merseyside club have the best run in of all the clubs fighting for the title. Their matches against Man City and Chelsea at Anfield may still prove decisive in the outcome of this years title race. Brendan Rodgers, who is my candidate for manager of the season, should be very proud of what has been a very successful season for Liverpool football club and prepare his charges for one last sprint to the finish line.
