While rivals hit the buffers, Liverpool deserve their lead

Alexis Mac Allister can have a footballing eloquence. His job involves reading the game.

- RICHARD JOLLY

He is an elegant realist of a footballer but he may have underestimated a team. His own. “Ask me before the season I wouldn’t say we were [title] candidates but now it looks like so we are,” said the World Cup winner. With a five-point lead at the third international break, it is increasingly undeniable.

Are they favourites? They wouldn’t say so, and not merely because they have appointed a manager less likely to make headlines with his rhetoric. Liverpool have the experience of spending more days top of the table last season than anyone else. It felt a footnote when Manchester City became champions again.

Arne Slot rationalised Liverpool’s exceptional run of 15 wins in 17 games by arguing that City, Arsenal and Chelsea could do likewise. The evidence is most slender in the case of the newlook Chelsea. City’s history indicates they can; the question is whether they are still the relentless winning machine of old. For now, however, Liverpool are the great anomaly among England’s quartet of Champions League clubs. City and Aston Villa have both lost their last four games in all competitions, Arsenal three of four.

All of which could mean a similar slump awaits Liverpool; if so, the standings would take on a different look. Slot’s calmness should suggest he is less reliant on momentum than more emotional managers but thus far, the combination of the Premier League’s competitiveness and the draining nature of a cramped fixture list makes it seem feasible that everyone will have a difficult patch. Maybe the title will be decided by consistency more than brilliance.