Liverpool's surprise complication hands Arsenal hope to deliver overdue Premier League drama
Liverpool's surprise complication hands Arsenal hope to deliver overdue Premier League drama
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Liverpool are top of the Premier League but Arsenal have renewed hope they can go one better than last year after finishing behind Man City. Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis was keenly watching Arsenal’s win over Tottenham Hotspur in the north London derby on Wednesday night, which would normally have raised transfer intrigue. There’s a more elementary explanation now, though, that has enlivened the season so far. Marinakis was watching what is currently a title rival. Forest can still call themselves that after a 1-1 draw with Liverpool, that served to bring everything that bit closer. This week’s results had the feel of setting things up for the rest of the season, starting with this weekend.
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Liverpool’s draw actually represented the first time since going top that their points-per-game dropped under 2.4, which also means it’s the first time since then that their projected return for the season is fewer than 90. That isn’t something that’s happened too much for English champions in the last decade.
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Since Leicester City miraculously won the league with a mere 81 points in 2015-16, there have only been two years when the title was claimed with fewer than 90 points. One was the full Covid season of 2020-21, when Manchester City won with 86 points, and then last season, which still brought 89.
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The wonder is whether a number of factors might be coming together for a similarly distorted campaign to 2015-16 and 2020-21. It might not be “a Leicester” but it could be something of a throwback, where there is a much greater margin for error. That may bring some genuine twists and turns, in a way that has been missing from title races since the early 2000s.
