Everyone seems to have an off day when playing against Liverpool | Football

EThere comes a point in time when the fact that everyone seems to have an off day when playing against Liverpool has to be seen as a Liverpool thing rather than a calendar anomaly. They go into the Christmas program having lost just one of their 16 games and are four points behind leaders Chelsea. While this has always been the season in which Manchester City fell apart, it’s also worth pointing out that Liverpool are currently on course for 93 points. Only four times have the champions won more.

Despite Liverpool’s consistency, Sunday’s 6-3 win over Tottenham tends to be seen as more a result of Tottenham’s unforgivable openness than Tottenham’s own excellence. And now, without Cristian Romero and Mickey van de Ven, and with Ange Postecoglou more committed to doing things his own way, playing for Spurs is more likely than at any other point. It is also true that it is easy. season. But at the same time, Spurs tend to have an advantage, at least in relative terms, against teams that come at them, teams that give them space to attack behind the defensive line, and the game becomes chaotic in the final quarter. Liverpool gave until they fell. They are lessons.

It was 6-3 to 9-0 at this point. For the first 40 minutes, they were dominant in midfield and destructive in the forward areas. Other teams have beaten Tottenham this season, but no one has beaten them like this. Despite the clumsiness that led to James Maddison’s goal, Liverpool regained a two-goal lead before half-time, enough to negate any chance of an improbable Tottenham comeback.

They keep doing this. On the opening weekend of the season, against Ipswich, he looked average in the first half, but improved enough after the break to score two goals. They struggled mightily against Wolves, but won the game five minutes after equalizing. Chelsea equalized just after half-time at Anfield and hit back within three minutes. He scored the equalizer in the final 10 minutes against Arsenal and Fulham. Two goals in the final 25 minutes led to come-from-behind wins against Brighton and Southampton. The 3-3 draw with Newcastle was a disappointing result as they conceded a late equalizer, but midway through the second half they pulled back from a very hopeless 2-1 down.

This weekend, for the first time, they thought they were under a little pressure. The lead, which was 9 points after the win against Manchester City, has now been reduced to 2 points. They had drawn two games in a row and with their game against Everton postponed, the threat of Chelsea loomed even if they had played one more game. Spurs are a dangerous opponent due to their strangely predictable inconsistency, but by half-time Liverpool were already out of the game. In the end, neighboring Everton had the advantage over Chelsea, resulting in a four-point lead at the end of the game. They can afford to make some mistakes. Christmas no longer feels like a time in a blizzard of matches where you can lose the lead without anyone even noticing.

There’s the oddity that three of their key performers have contracts expiring in June. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah all contributed to Sunday’s victory. At least one of them is likely to sign a new contract before the end of the season, but at the moment it seems likely that at least one will leave. It gives the campaign a strange sense of impermanence, a mayfly-like grandeur, made all the more glorious by the fact that it may be a one-off offer.

But until the end, Liverpool looked like they were making the most of their advantage. Arsenal, Aston Villa and City had momentary doubts when we played them, but it has clearly been a meltdown season for City and they are probably not as important as they were when they played three weeks ago. It seems that you can now feel it. Real Madrid didn’t have Vinicius. But sometimes it works. The team still needs to take advantage of it.

And while Liverpool have been relatively injury-free, not everything has been perfect. Arn Slott has found a way to use Ryan Gravenbirch and Curtis Jones, which means the absence of a traditional holding midfielder has been forgotten. Salah and Van Dijk are back to their best. Dominik Szoboszlai and Luis Diaz are growing. And every time Liverpool were put under pressure, Slott found an answer. Although this cost him the Premier League, it is a remarkable achievement for a manager in his first season in England.

This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian’s weekly coverage of matches in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com. We’ll get the best answer in a future edition.