John Aldridge says he is not backing the Reds to bring home the Premier League title this season – because teams give Manchester City an easy ride most of the time.
Writing for the Irish Independent, he explained: “I would expect City to see off everybody except Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal home and away, which will give them more than 80 points before we start totting up their points from the top-of-the-table clashes.
“The lower-ranked sides don’t believe they can take on City in a straight fight and they go into damage limitation mode before a ball is kicked, which makes life easy for Guardiola’s men.
“We have seen what can happen when European sides have a go at that City defence and put them under some pressure, with their poor results in the Champions League group stages last season confirming they don’t like teams having a go at them.
“However, we won’t see that too often in the Premier League over the next few months, with the wins for Crystal Palace, Leicester and Newcastle against City last season shocks that are unlikely to be repeated this time around.”
Aldo says that the Reds have a better chance of winning the Champions League again than winning the Premier League, which we’d broadly agree with.
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That doesn’t mean we’re not desperate to win the league, but adding number seven to the cabinet so soon after number six would be no bad thing.
The Reds will, though, push City all the way again – hopefully, this year the final outcome can be different. There’s everything to play for heading into the new season, so there’s no point giving up already!
Beat Norwich City convincingly on Friday night, and the Reds will have made a perfect start.