Former Liverpool forward Stan Collymore has provided his verdict on the Premier League title race and has discussed the teams he believes will make up the hunt for the trophy this term.
Manchester City are currently top of the table, one point ahead of Liverpool in second, and four points clear of Chelsea in third.
“Liverpool’s seasons of finishing one point or two points behind Manchester City with an incredible points haul, for me, show the character of Liverpool Football Club,” the 50-year-old told Empire of the Kop.
“The players then went back to preseason and said ‘we want to win the league’ and they won the league.
“I see a little bit more flakiness in Chelsea, I see a little bit enjoying ‘we’re Champions of Europe’ and not quite as much, rolling your sleeves up and getting on with it and I think that’s showed in results in recent weeks.
“Liverpool, when you see teams come at them, you always feel that Liverpool have the calm to be able to deal with it.
“Chelsea didn’t against Everton. I know it was a 1-1 draw, but Everton haven’t gone down there and won since 1994.
“Rafa Benitez is under major pressure, so that’s a bad result, the optics look bad.
Although the Stamford Bridge outfit may have dropped more points against the Toffees and have now won just three of their last seven league games, Collymore still believes Thomas Tuchel’s men will be in with a shout for the title come the end of the season.
“I know Everton got a decent result against Arsenal, but they’ve been up and down, they’ve been good or poor, but I think it’s a three-horse race,” the ex-Red added.
“You only have to look at the points tally on the table and those three will detach themselves from the others, if not already in reality.
“I’m guessing by the time the Champions League comes back around in February, Thomas Tuchel, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp will be saying ‘let’s rack as many points on the board before we have the distraction again of European football’.
“By the time we get back to European football being played, the difference between third and fourth, or third and fifth, could be 10 points.
“I just don’t see Arsenal, Manchester United, West Ham mounting a sustained challenge over that period of time.”
It’s certainly looking like a three-horse race at the moment.
Us Reds are used to competing against City, that’s become the norm in recent seasons, so competing against Chelsea as well doesn’t really change much.
We just need to continue working hard, hope that the goals continue to fly in and we’ll definitely be up there at the end of the season.
You can watch Collymore discuss the title race below via our Twitter page.
🗣"I think it’s a three-horse race."@StanCollymore provides his verdict on this season's Premier League title race #LFC 🏆 pic.twitter.com/9fqPrJXgR2
— Empire of the Kop (@empireofthekop) December 17, 2021