Let it never be said that we shy away from a hot take, because this one is positively molten: Liverpool are going to win the league.
We’ll give you a moment to come to terms with the sheer bravery of that statement. Done? Good. So now we’ve all accepted Liverpool are going to win the league the more interesting question becomes when are they going to win it, and which options might be the funniest because that, at the end of the day, is what matters, isn’t it?
So let’s run through some possible scenarios.
First off our starting point. Liverpool have 73 points from 30 games after a nervy Merseyside Derby win, and Arsenal 61 from 30.
Maths fans will already have noted that means the most points Arsenal can finish with is 85, so 13 points is the magic number for Liverpool, whether those points are those they collect themselves or are instead dropped by Arsenal. Or – and let’s face it this is overwhelmingly the most likely option – a combination of the above.
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April 20: The earliest Liverpool can win the Premier League
Obvious starting point is obvious. But it’s already been pushed back, this.
So hubristically arrogant have Liverpool become in this season’s so-called title so-called race that they didn’t even bother playing any league games at all for about three-and-a-half weeks at the end of March, which allowed Arsenal to briefly sneak back within nine points by beating Chelsea and Fulham. Liverpool finally decided to play – and win – another game on Wednesday night against Everton which leaves the quickest route to a title party looking something like this:
* Arsenal lose to Everton on April 5
* Liverpool beat Fulham on April 6
* Arsenal lose beat Brentford on April 12
* Liverpool beat West Ham on April 13
* Arsenal fail to beat Ipswich on April 20
And even if Arsenal do beat Ipswich, they might only delay things for a couple of hours before…
* Liverpool beat Leicester on April 20
A draw for Liverpool against Leicester would be enough to take Arsenal out of the picture if all the rest has fallen into place, but we’ll go for the win because it would also definitively rule out Nottingham Forest. The three Liverpool wins in the above scenario carry them to 82 points and even if Forest win all their eight remaining games the best they can muster is a mere 81. #NunoOut
May 10-11: Liverpool win the Premier League against Arsenal
Among the many assumptions being made here, surely the safest is that Liverpool v Arsenal will be played on Sunday May 11 rather than Saturday May 10 but for now that is every bit as much conjecture as the idea that Liverpool have won the league. Technically, it might not be the case.
So what do Arsenal, and indeed Liverpool need to do (or not do) to keep the title race alive into the final few weeks so that Liverpool can claim it with victory against their closest ‘challengers’?
Obviously there are multiple routes that can lead us here, but the crucial numbers are that by May 10 or 11, Liverpool’s lead must be somewhere between four and nine points. Any less than four and they cannot quite get far enough ahead with two games still to play. More than nine and the game is already up.
For our scenario let’s try and get them six points clear. That’s the most fun one, because it would mean that a draw for Arsenal would just about keep them alive and a win would officially Make Things Interesting.
It ‘only’ requires Liverpool to mess themselves a couple of times over the coming weeks, as long as Arsenal win all of their games in the meantime. Stop laughing, they might. No, seriously, they might: Arsenal do have a decent-looking run until that big date at Anfield.
Here’s the gist of it
* Arsenal take maximum points against Everton, Brentford, Ipswich, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth (the three trickiest opponents on paper there are all at home, too, while there is for now a significant Palace caveat outlined in full later on so look out for that)
* Liverpool come a cropper against two of Fulham, West Ham, Leicester, Tottenham or Chelsea.
We don’t think we’re speaking out of turn here in suggesting Chelsea away is our likeliest route to success here.
So there you have it. All we need is for Arsenal to win five straight games while Liverpool lose two out of five (or lose one and draw two to give a five-point advantage, which still works just as well really) in a run that features four conspicuously bad football teams, and we’ve got ourselves an Anfield title decider. Well not really a decider. Liverpool would probably still win the title even if they lose it. But that won’t stop the Super Sunday graphic-and-montage team and it’s not stopping us.
And, obviously, should a visibly weary Liverpool contrive to make a bollocks of even more of those games, Arsenal have the equivalent additional wriggle room of their own, and so on.
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May 3-4: Liverpool win title and Arsenal have to give them a guard of honour at Anfield the following week
We make no apologies for this being our favourite option of the lot. You can call it bias if you like, and in a way it is. We are enormously biased towards the funniest outcome in any given situation.
It is our unshakeable belief that the only way to save VAR is to stop poring over pixels in a futile bid to try and get every decision correct and instead to just go with whatever the team agrees is the funniest outcome from any VAR review.
And the funniest outcome for this title race is for Liverpool to wrap up the title the week before Arsenal’s visit so that Mikel Arteta’s team are obliged to either give them the standard guard of honour for newly-crowned champions or be harshly considered pricks if they refuse.
We’re not really sure why or how the guard of honour became a thing, but we’re glad it has and doubly glad that the seemingly reasonable “Why the f**k should we?” position is considered bad form. Again: because it’s funny. There really isn’t any good reason why Arsenal’s players should be forced to prostrate themselves before Liverpool’s in this way, but we don’t make the rules. We simply laugh at the outcome.
And the worry for Arsenal fans now is that this seems an alarmingly plausible occurrence. There are multiple combinations of extremely believable results that lead us to a situation where Liverpool start the weekend of May 3-4 with a lead of no more than 12 points and end it with a lead of at least 10, which is what we need.
Really, it looks a lot like the previous scenario but without the unlikely ‘Liverpool messing themselves’ element. If Arsenal take maximum points from their next five games (Everton, Brentford, Ipswich, Palace, Bournemouth) then that would take them to 73 at the start and 76 by the end of that pre-Anfield weekend.
We would therefore need Liverpool to have no more than 85 points by the start of that weekend and at least 86 by the end of it.
Liverpool cannot get to more than 85 before that weekend, because they only have four games before and are currently on 73. Not even Arne Slot can spirit up more than 12 points in four games. He’s a fool to have even considered it.
If Arsenal and Liverpool win all their games between now and that first weekend in May, even an Arsenal win over Bournemouth will see Liverpool crowned if they avoid defeat at Chelsea.
And again, obviously the same applies if they simply match each other’s results whatever they may be; 12 is the maximum lead we need Liverpool to have heading into that weekend, and that’s precisely where it currently sits.
April 20: The earliest Liverpool can relinquish their Premier League lead
Twelve points seems like a big lead, doesn’t it? And that’s because it is. But once you start looking gloomily at the very worst-case scenario it’s amazing how quickly it can evaporate.
All that this one needs is for Arsenal to win their next three games and Liverpool to lose their next three games, and all that requires is for each of us – up to and including Arsenal and Liverpool themselves – to simply forget everything we have learned and come to know during this season to date.
But the fact is that this sequence of results is technically possible.
* Arsenal beat Everton on April 5
* Liverpool lose to Fulham on April 6
* Arsenal beat Brentford on April 12
* Liverpool lose to West Ham on April 13
* Arsenal beat Ipswich on April 20
* Liverpool lose to Leicester on April 20
If all that mad sh*t happens the 14-goal swing Arsenal would also need in their favour is all-but guaranteed and send them giddily into top spot amid what would by that point be an absolutely unstoppable wave of discourse and viral AFTV videos reaching numbers that would see questions raised in parliament.
May 18: Earliest Arsenal can win the title
Alas, one thing Liverpool’s win over Everton has now confirmed is that Arsenal cannot win the title at Anfield on the third-last weekend of the season. They will have to wait until the following week to wrap it up after this load of absolute f***ing nonsense comes to pass:
* Arsenal beat Everton on April 5
* Liverpool lose to Fulham on April 6
* Arsenal beat Brentford on April 12
* Liverpool lose to West Ham on April 13
* Arsenal beat Ipswich on April 20
* Liverpool lose to Leicester on April 20
* Arsenal beat Crystal Palace on April 23
(So yeah, even the date is hypothetical on that one, but what we do know is it won’t now be taking place on its scheduled date of April 26 because Palace are in the FA Cup semi-finals that weekend, and available alternative slots are inevitably thin on the ground. It’s unlikely to be moved to the week after its scheduled date, because it might have to move again for Champions League semi-finals, so we’re guessing it gets moved to the midweek before instead. It can’t be the Tuesday – April 22 – because Arsenal play Ipswich on Sunday April 20, ergo: Wednesday April 23 it is. Maybe)
* Liverpool lose to Tottenham on April 27
* Arsenal beat Bournemouth on May 3-4
* Liverpool lose to Chelsea on May 3-4
See? It’s extremely plausible. And if that extremely plausible sequence of results comes to pass, Arsenal will travel to Anfield with 76 points to Liverpool’s 73.
If Arsenal can then just avoid defeat at Anfield, and assuming Nottingham Forest have spilled a couple of points here and there along the way, they will have the chance to win the title at home to Newcastle the following weekend.
