The failure to replace Vincent Kompany, the habit of conceding goals in clusters and the strain of the manager’s intensity are taking their toll on the
Premier League champions
And with that, surely, Manchester City’s title race was run. Only the most astonishing of all collapses, Kevin Keegan riding Devon Loch across the line of every Greg Norman putt at Augusta – or possibly Leicester City – can stop
Liverpool now. Jürgen Klopp’s side can go off to Qatar for the Club
World Cup and play the eight games in 19 days that the schedule absurdly demands of them not only with a cushion but in the knowledge that the champions are fallible.
That was said of City last season as well, of course, when away at Newcastle they lost a fourth game of the season at the end of January.