EPL TALK: Don’t kid ourselves, Liverpool and Arsenal fans, title race feels like a one-sided Man City monopoly

THIS one hurts. Something feels broken now. Our expectations. Our hopes. Or perhaps even our naïve belief in the English Premier League’s insistence that this season was going to be different. Like a parent who doesn’t deliver the right birthday gift, they promised something new: a three-horse race. And yet here we are, unwrapping the same ‘present’ as last year.

The title race no longer feels like a title race. The burgeoning empire is flexing once more. Cue The Imperial March from Star Wars. Manchester City will take it from here.

Ah, but it’s only two points and there are still six games to go, right? Fortunes can rise and fall in six games. Anything could happen. The ball is round. Keep the cliches coming because that’s all the rest of us have at this point. Only Pep Guardiola has Rodri, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish, Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden, rested and refreshed for the jaunty task of collecting a fourth title in four seasons and perhaps even a historic Double Treble, just for the hell of it, because they can.

For anyone else, Walker, Rodri, Grealish, Silva and Foden would make a sparkly collection of five-a-side GOATs. For Guardiola, they were benchwarmers against Luton Town.

And that’s the crushing reality, because it's not just two points, is it? Those are the wrong numbers, the wrong maths. It’s five outlandish talents taking the day off. It’s the 63 passes that Liverpool misplaced in the first half against Crystal Palace – their highest total of the season. It’s the six minutes when Arsenal succumbed against Aston Villa, when fatigue, fear, a lack of squad depth or all of the above punished the Gunners for the crime of not being Manchester City, for being vulnerable, exposed and human.

Manchester City were those things too, just about, against Luton Town. In fact, breaking news, none of the title challengers played particularly well at the weekend, but only one result was never really in doubt, because only one club is powered by a city-state. Only one club could leave those five players on the bench and still prevail comfortably, an act of such opulence, it’s a wonder they didn’t go the whole hog and burn £50 notes at the final whistle, just to thoroughly underscore the wealth-dividing symbolism.

And no, this isn’t a petty takedown of a supreme football machine, calibrated for another domestic wipeout and maybe a further annexation of Europe, too. Manchester City are doing what Manchester City always do, which is to treat the EPL like a warped reality version of TV show Survivor, where they outplay, outlast and outspend everyone else.

If anything, the joke is on us, for clinging to the illusion of a sustained competitive challenge, ideally until the last day of the season.

Running on fumes of overachievement

There was already enough evidence to the contrary. The Reds have been running on fumes for weeks. Jurgen Klopp’s rousing speeches, a little muscle memory among his veterans and the initial exuberance of the academy kids, running around like junior detectives in Scooby Doo, enabled the Anfield faithful to dream. But the weariness has been evident, arguably since their exhausting Carabao Cup triumph.

As long as the temptation was there to reach for the glass half full, Liverpool’s dizzying comebacks were celebrated, championing those 27 points collected from losing positions without focusing too much on the soft goals conceded in the first place. At times, the Reds have resembled Elvis’ final nights in Vegas. They’re still dancing to the Jailhouse Rock, but the moves are slower and heavier. Showmanship got them through early on, against Brighton and Sheffield United, but not anymore. They’re shattered.

And they should be shattered. Overachievement should only ever be a temporary exercise, not a default setting, especially when Darwin Núñez, Luis Díaz and Mo Salah are currently hamstrung collectively by temperament, timidity and tiredness. Take your pick. There is no leading suspect or single reason for Liverpool’s inability to convert chances, but everything feels too rushed in the box, too panic-stricken.

In the frenetic stages of the Palace defeat, Liverpool’s desperation was palpable. Their forwards kept going, but only like a drunken nightclubber relying on the dregs of adrenaline to move across the dancefloor. The energy couldn’t make up for the lack of rhythm.

The Reds don’t finish like Manchester City. Just as the Gunners couldn’t finish like Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins. Indeed, as the absurd debate concerning Erling Haaland’s alleged lack of talent inevitably peters out, the irony remains that both Liverpool and Arsenal still lament the absence of a dependable No.9. Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka both squandered decent opportunities against Villa.

And when Oleksandr Zinchenko and Leandro Trossard both struggled (and Trossard’s replacement Gabriel Martinelli didn’t offer much either), then the gulf fully revealed itself. Mikel Arteta brought on Emile Smith Rowe, Jorginho and Eddie Nketiah, which isn’t a criticism of him or his substitutes. On the contrary, it’s a compliment to a resourceful manager who has taken that squad this far.

Ironically, only one of the competitors in the three-horse hasn’t overachieved, the one that’ll probably walk off with a fourth consecutive title. Money doesn’t just buy an unrivalled bench. It buys an unyielding sense of destiny.

That’s why Arsenal’s stadium was half-empty by the final whistle and Liverpool’s players were lost, zombified souls, slumped on the Anfield turf. They know what’s coming. We all do. Two points doesn’t seem like two points in a lopsided contest masquerading as an equal one.

Hopefully, Liverpool and Arsenal will come good again in the last six games, but their fatigue feels contagious. The prospect of another post-Easter slump followed by another Manchester City coronation is a little tiring. In any sport, it’s hard to muster enthusiasm for an entrenched monopoly.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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