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Last season, the Premier League champion, Manchester City, dropped 21 points total. The season before, title-winning Man City dropped 28 points, but that felt like a pandemic-related aberration. The season before that, Liverpool dropped 15 points and the season before, City dropped 16. One more before that, City dropped 14 points. This season, after draws at Fulham and home vs. Crystal Palace, Liverpool has already dropped four.
The title race is not over, obviously. It’s mid-August. But given how little margin there is for error at the top of the table based on the standard that Man City and Liverpool have set over the last half decade—twice the title has come down to a single point—a four-point separation at the start is not insignificant. Liverpool plays Arsenal and Chelsea away among its next eight league games, meaning there’s a legitimate possibility that it could go into the fixture at home against Man City on Oct. 16 needing to win to feel in the hunt, even as early as it will still be. Liverpool has not played particularly badly so far at all, but were it to lose at Manchester United next Monday, it would fall behind Erik ten Hag’s much-mocked side in the table.
