My oh my, are we in for a fantastic last few games.
As it stands, with Chelsea beating Swansea 1-0 and Liverpool edging by Manchester City 3-2, Liverpool is up by two points on Chelsea and seven above City, who has two games in hand on both.
Liverpool is the darling of the season. They came out of nowhere to become the best team in the English Premier League. Led by goal scoring machines Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, who have scored 49 goals between them, the Reds are always in full attack mode and only want to outscore you. Their defense has been a little suspect, but even if they let up three goals, their destructive strikers can dig them out of almost any hole.
Chelsea is a team that looks to be almost out of luck. With no definitive top striker, the Blues have had to scrounge up their goals by committee every game. They have gotten great opportunities from rising stars Eden Hazard and Oscar and are great at finding a way to squeak out games.
Their two recent losses to lower tier EPL teams coupled with the fact that their run in the Champions League has yet to end only hurts their chances in the final push for the EPL title.
Preseason favorite Manchester City has looked like the best team in the world at the best of times, and rather like a semi-pro team at the worst of times.
Sunday morning’s loss to Liverpool was a heartbreaker and costly point drop. Now seven points back from Liverpool, their two extra games will not save them and are now no longer are able to control their own destiny. To add insult to injury, their top-flight midfielder Yaya Toure is rumored to be out for the rest of the season after injuring himself early in the Liverpool match.
So what does this all mean?
With Liverpool and Chelsea both only having four games left and just two points to separate them, Chelsea needs Liverpool to falter. Luckily, the Blues possess the ability to stop the Reds’ red-hot streak as they get to face them in Anfield in their third-to-last match of the season.
If Chelsea can beat Liverpool away from home, win their other three games and also have City draw or lose a match in their last six, the Blues can win the EPL title. Chelsea’s manager, Jose Mourinho, was Chelsea’s manager the last time the Blues won the EPL title, and with their “find-a-way-to-win” playing style, anything is possible.
Goals win games, and Liverpool has no problem scoring them at home or away. The Reds are playing with the most confidence of any team in the EPL, maybe even in Europe as a whole. Because they finished outside of the top four last season, Liverpool did not have to worry about Champions League fatigue and were thus able to focus all of their energy and game planning for EPL matches. Suarez, the controversial Uruguayan striker, missed the first nine games of the 2013-14 season after biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic last season. The suspension only makes his 29 goals 12 assists, many of them to Sturridge, more impressive.
The final four games for Liverpool and Chelsea are against teams that are in the bottom 12 of the table, excluding their head-to-head matchup. Chelsea has the slightly easier road with multiple matches against the league’s bottom 12.
City can win out and beat out Chelsea for the top spot, but they need Liverpool to falter, which does not seem like a possibility given their recent success on the field. I predict that Liverpool will win the 2013-14 EPL title, but the entire season hinges on the Blues/Reds matchup in Anfield, and Chelsea’s five losses this year have all been away from home.