John Barnes shared that Manchester City’s inability to drop points unnecessarily is a problem for Liverpool in their bid to win the Premier League title this season.
The former Reds player revealed that in his opinion the league is won by the team that is able to beat the perceived weaker teams in the division and it doesn’t matter if you lose against one of your rivals.
Barnes shared that while Man City may have already drawn a game this season, he still believes they have the edge in the race to win England’s top-division once again.
“The team that win the league are the top team who do better than the so-called lesser teams and that’s where Man City did well last year cause y’know Man Utd etc did beat them,” said Barnes on Sky Sports News (September 13, 9:22am).
“So as much as it’s a challenge because it against one of your rivals, the games against Leicester and West Ham, they’re the games we fell down last year so even if Tottenham do beat us if we beat everybody else we win the league.
“I think us being confident in terms of beating Man City, the problem we have is that Man City are so good, they’re so strong and they don’t drop unnecessary stupid points, okay they’ve drawn a game now but y’know last year regardless of how they did against the top teams, they never looked like dropping points against lesser teams.
“I think they will this year, I don’t think they’ll have a good of a season as they did last year, but it’s a big gap to make up.
“Liverpool will get much much closer but in terms of the positivity, the harmony and the belief Liverpool now have in terms of being consistent, because I think even in the past we always felt we fall away, no matter how close we got with Suarez (Luis), we really felt, are we going to go all the way?
“Whereas this year I think there is much more confidence in us going all the way but for me Man City got this.”
OPINION
Barnes certainly is confident that the Reds will do better than last season but isn’t ready to stick his neck on the line and back them for the title ahead of Man City just yet. The retired footballer also seems fine with the idea of the Reds’ losing to Tottenham as he believes that it was more important to be the likes of West Ham and Leicester City. However Jurgen Klopp’s side do have really good chances of taking all three points from their clash with Spurs at Wembley on Saturday as Mauricio Pochettino’s side did suffer defeat courtesy to Watford ahead of the international break. Their defeat was made worse by the fact that the Hornets were able to come from behind in order to snatch victory which means Spurs’ confidence about their ability may have taken a knock. The Reds should look to expose this as it may be tht their clash with Pochettino’s side is coming at the ideal time for that reason. As for Barnes pinpointing the one problem Liverpool face in their bid champions, there is not much they can do to address the problem and just have to focus on keep churning out the results in order to make what Man City are doing irrelevant.
