Has Klopp got into their heads?
THERE was a point on Saturday afternoon, around 4.15pm, when mobile phones on Merseyside began flashing like lights on a Christmas tree.
News had filtered through from Manchester about a third Crystal Palace goal and the sense of disbelief that followed Luka Milivojevic’s penalty was not confined to those who had travelled to the Etihad Stadium from South London. Every Liverpool fan knew the implications — game on!
Liverpool had guaranteed themselves first place on Christmas Day the previous evening, thanks to a tenacious 2-0 win at Wolves, but the assumption was that their advantage when resuming against Newcastle on Boxing Day would be slender.
Unexpectedly, they will return with a four-point buffer and soaring dreams.
To use a horseracing analogy, Manchester City, for the first time, are off the bridle. Liverpool have set a relentless gallop over the past two months and rattled off seven successive Premier League victories, but to stand any chance of winning the title, they had to get City to make a false step. This was it.
Have Liverpool got into City heads? Perhaps. When the teams were paired in the Champions League quarter-final draw last season, TV cameras immediately panned to Txiki Begiristain, City’s director of football, who looked troubled. They wanted to face anyone but them.
Expressions around the City Football Academy, where Pep Guardiola has been emphasising the importance of the forthcoming collision between the clubs on January 3, will be similar. They did not expect to be playing catch-up, certainly not now.
City — be absolutely clear — remain the favourites to win this battle but the second half of the season will see Guardiola in the kind of scrap for a title he has not experienced since 2010, when his Barcelona team pipped Real Madrid to La Liga, 99 points to 96.
Whether Liverpool can go all the way is open to debate. They have been No 1 at Christmas three times — 1996, 2008 and 2013 — since their last title triumph in 1990, but faded when it mattered, so for that reason Liverpool will be circumspect.
Of those three challenges, 2013-14 was the most high-profile, given Steven Gerrard’s stumble which cost a vital goal against Chelsea. But the biggest failure was the first occasion 22 years ago. A side managed by Roy Evans lost three of their final seven matches to, inexplicably, finish fourth.
What can be said is that no Anfield team have been better equipped in the past three decades to go the distance. There have been plenty of times since 1990 when they have suffered on a soggy pitch, as the rain has poured and the home fans have made life uncomfortable, but Klopp’s men put a flag in the ground at Molineux.
‘We believed we could fight for the title from the start of the season,’ said left back Andrew Robertson. ‘Whether or not we could be contenders, you only find out at the end of the season.’
Things, of course, can change in a flash but Liverpool are picking up momentum on the turn for home. They aren’t going away any time soon.