Is the Premier League title race almost over?
Liverpool’s victory against Southampton on Sunday left them eight points clear in first place.
Only once has a team had a bigger lead after 12 games and that was Manchester United. With a nine-point lead, they won the title in the 1993-94 season.
Two other teams led by eight points at this stage (Manchester City in 2017-18 and Liverpool in 2019-20) and both were also crowned champions.
Liverpool’s haul of 31 points from their first 12 games has only been equaled or surpassed 10 times in Premier League history. Eight of those clubs won the title, with only Arsenal in 2022-23 and Newcastle in 1995-96 not celebrating at the end of the season after such an impressive start.
There are more good signs for Liverpool as they look to end Manchester City’s run of four consecutive titles. Never before had a team lost five games in a row (City’s current streak) and become champions.
If Arne Slot’s team beat City at Anfield on Sunday, they would be 11 points clear of the defending champions; a deficit of that magnitude has only been recovered three times in the Premier League.
“If you play in this league with so many quality teams, you have to keep winning, because if you don’t, others will,” Slot told BBC Sport. “That’s what we try to do every game.”
Former City defender Nedum Onuoha told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I would be surprised if Liverpool didn’t win the league this year because they feel like the most complete team. “They are now putting enough points on the board to make it easier for them to heading into the final stretch of the season.”
The title race ended then, right? Not necessarily.
Has Liverpool’s start to the season been relatively favorable? Opta has calculated that the Reds had the sixth-easiest first 10 games of any Premier League team.
However, City’s start was ranked as the fifth easiest, with the Gunners at the other end of the scale with the seventh most difficult games.
The lowest score a team had after 12 games but still won the title was Manchester United with 19 in 1997. Pep Guardiola’s men lifted the crown in 2021 with just 20 points at this stage.
Four teams below Liverpool this season have more than that number.
City and Arsenal, eight and nine points away respectively, would also rightly point out that there are still 26 games left to play and that bigger leads have already been blown before.
We analyze the biggest deficits that the Premier League winners have recovered.
