Liverpool's Moral Capital Towards Champion

MANCHESTER, MONDAY – Liverpool's path to the championship trophy is getting closer. An 11-point advantage over their closest rivals and their first win at Manchester City's home ground, Monday (24/2/2025) early morning WIB at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester, in a decade is a fantastic morale boost to win the second title in the English Premier League era.

City is like kryptonite for Liverpool. Since the birth of the championship rivalry in the 2018-2019 season, Liverpool has failed more often than succeeded in the hunt for the Premier League trophy with "The Citizens". Liverpool only beat City once in the 2019-2020 season.

But after Juergen Klopp left and was replaced by Arne Slot, Liverpool's fate has a much better chance this season. The symptom is their first win at the Etihad since the 2015-2016 season.

Goals from Mohamed Salah (14th minute) and Dominik Szoboszlai (37th minute) in the first half were enough to secure the three points for the “Reds” from the Etihad thanks to a 2-0 advantage. The result was Liverpool's first win at City's home in the Pep Guardiola era.

Not only three points, the victory over City is a signal for Liverpool to intimidate their closest rivals, Arsenal, in the title race. Leading 11 points with 12 matches left in the season, Liverpool will be increasingly difficult to contain.

For Liverpool, they have 11 more games in the Premier League. Seven matches will take place at Anfield Stadium, including hosting Arsenal (21/4/2025). As for the remaining four away matches, only coming to Chelsea's headquarters (3/5/2025) and Brighton & Hove Albion (18/5/2025) will be the remaining challenging journeys for the Reds this season.

Armed with the points gap and the quality of opponents in the rest of the season, Opta said Liverpool's chances of winning the title reached 95.8 percent. That number jumped significantly before this weekend's match which was at 84.7 percent. The increase was also driven by Arsenal's defeat to West Ham at the Emirates Stadium, Saturday (22/2/2025) yesterday.

However, Slot does not want his team to be complacent at the top of the standings. Unlike other leagues, according to Slot, the Premier League has a greater chance of a surprise if his team fails to maintain its performance and focus for the rest of the season.

"In any other league, having an advantage like we have would be very comfortable, but not in this league. There are always challenges in every game. We saw Plymouth Argyle beat us in the FA Cup," Slot was quoted as saying on the club's website.

The Dutch tactician was also unperturbed by the chants echoed by Liverpool supporters in the Etihad away stand. "We will win the league," was the chant sung by Liverpool supporters at the Etihad.

"The fans can sing whatever they want but we know how hard we have to work. Someone asked after we drew at Aston Villa that we were slowing down. I never believed that and I won't say anything now," he added.

In the Premier League, Liverpool have only been able to lead by double digits twice until week 26. The first was in the 2019-2020 season. When the competition was halted due to Covid-19, the Reds were 22 points ahead of City.

Now, with an 11-point lead over Arsenal, Liverpool are certainly the favourites to win the title again. They are only the second team to leave Arsenal with that margin in the Premier League title race since Manchester United in 1997-98.

"There is no way back for Arsenal in the title race. They can win every game they have left but I don't think that's enough to knock Liverpool out," former City goalkeeper Joe Hart told the BBC.

The battle against City is not just about the numbers on the scoreboard showing Liverpool's improvement and City's drastic decline this season. In terms of play, Liverpool is much better than The Citizens, except for the record of ball possession and the number of passes.

The Reds' shooting accuracy reached 50 percent. Meanwhile, City only produced 31 percent of shots on target. Liverpool also collected better goal expectations with 0.71 expected goals (xG) compared to 0.65 xG.

In terms of defensive determination, Liverpool also confirmed their defensive prowess compared to City. Intercepts (4), blocks (8), goalkeeper saves (5), successful tackles (13) to sweeps (34) are Liverpool's defensive records which are absolutely superior to the home team.

City manager Pep Guardiola admitted that the performance caused his team to fail to create a single big chance. Guardiola considered the match against Liverpool to be an important lesson for City's young players.

"We played a young team that is important for the future of the club. They played a team that could win the league very well, even though we were less creative in terms of passing in the final third," Guardiola was quoted as saying on the club's website.

As for the attacking statistics in the Premier League this season, Liverpool is the best team in attack. They excel in a number of statistics, such as goals per game (2.37), xG per game (2.23), big chances created per game (4), and shots per game (14.6).

"The boys have worked really hard every day to get us to where we are. Hopefully we can continue that in the last three months of the season and then see where we are," Slot said.