How will the league finish? Battle for Europe, and against the Drop 19/20

Quick Overview and I'm sure many rival fans would be bored of hearing this but we Liverpool FC are the champions of England with 7 games to spare. Now it begs the question, how will the rest of the league finish? Here's a quick Overview of the table at time of this writing.

Remaining Matches:

Liverpool: Man City (A), Villa (H), Brighton (A), Burnley (H), Arsenal (A), Chelsea (H), Newcastle (A)

Man City: Liverpool (H), Southampton (A), Newcastle (H), Brighton (A), Bournemouth (H), Watford (A), Arsenal (A FA Cup), Norwich (H)

Chelsea: West Ham (A), Watford (H), Crystal Palace (H), Sheffield (A), Norwich (H), Liverpool (A), Man U (A FA Cup), Wolves (H)

Leicester City: Everton (A), Crystal Palace (H), Arsenal (A), Bournemouth (A), Sheffield (H), Tottenham (A), Man U(H)

Wolves: Arsenal (H), Sheffield (A), Everton (H), Burnley (A), Crystal Palace (H), Chelsea (A)

Manchester United: Brighton (A), Bournemouth (H), Villa (A), Saints (H), Crystal Palace (A), West Ham (H), Chelsea (H, FA Cup) Leicester (A)

Tottenham Hotspurs: Sheffield A, Everton (H), Bournemouth (A), Arsenal (H), Newcastle (A), Leicester (H), Crystal Palace (A)

Sheffield United: Tottenham (H), Burnley (A),Wolves (H), Chelsea (H), Leicester (A), Everton (H), Saints (A)

Burnley

Arsenal: Norwich (H), Wolves (A) Leicester (H), Tottenham (A) Liverpool, Villa, Watford,

Crystal Palace

Everton

Southampton

Newcastle United

Brighton and Hove: Man U (H), Norwich (A), Liverpool (A), Man City (H), Southampton (A), Newcastle (H), Burnley (A)

Watford

West Ham

Bournemouth

Aston Villa

Norwich: Arsenal (A), Brighton (H), Watford (A), West Ham (H), Chelsea (A), Burnley (H), Man City (A)


BATTLE FOR EUROPE:

For Manchester City, we have to assume the scenario that their ban may be lifted for next season if their appeal goes through. So there's still a possibility that they may still be involved in the UEFA Champions League Football even though they may still be banned now. With that said, that'll leave us the Top 5 for UCL and 6 and 7 for Europa League.

At the moment, the battle here on out will be an interesting one. Because unexpectedly, Wolves are in the running for another European Competition for the 2nd year running. Nuno Esprito Santo, a cute and chubby manager has been doing good surprisingly for them. And any points dropped by Leicester, Man City and Chelsea will be huge cause' instead of Europa League which they did last year, they might even stand a chance to qualify for the UEFA Champions League. That said competition for places will be extremely tight as clubs in the 43+ points thereabouts still have a fighting chance.

UCL PLACES PREDICTION;

Liverpool: As Premier League winners, their place in the UCL is guaranteed. It's gonna be a long ride though as we will need to defend our title at the same time. But for now till the end of the season we can afford to play around with new formations and rotate heavily to give game time to our young players like Elliot, Curtis Jones, Neco Williams and Ki-Jana Hoever.

Man City:
We have to not rule out their ban overturned. If so, there is a small chance they can still at least compete in the UCL. With their current position on the table for the remaining games, qualification should also be no problems provided they can play. Their remaining games should be easy work for them too,  with the only exceptions of Liverpool. They can't get complacent against Brighton either, seeing their morale heavily boosted with the Arsenal win too. However they are still in the current UCL, so chances are they may want to reserve their best team for the remaining UCL rounds and rotate heavily for the PL games.

Leicester
The Foxes have been on a bit of a slump lately, not picking up as many points as they should  That said, their UCL Qualification chance may come under threat with Chelsea and Wolves both at their heels. Until their last few games, they need to notch up wins and fast.

Chelsea
Coming out from a massive 2-1 win over Man City, they'll have the adrenaline to go all out. Their next few games are easy enough, but the last few games is gonna be a doozy.

Manchester United:
Their road to the last 7 PL games will be an easy challenge. And provided they are careful they can also go on and win the FA Cup.


EUROPA LEAGUE PLACES PREDICTION:

Wolves:
To be on the safe side, I'll put them occupying the first of the 2 Europa spots although they have every chance to still gun for the Champions League position. They've been doing so well. But with Arsenal and Chelsea still to come for them, they have to be wary as this may present as a bit of a wall.

Sheffield United

Like it or not, Sheffield can be a very VERY stubborn team to break down. Drawing against Arsenal Chelsea, Man U and Tottenham, while they only narrowly lost to Man City and Liverpool in their encounters. Therefore it is an easy guess to say that the Blades have every chance to at least grab a Euro place.

BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL:

It's gonna be dicey from 16-20. Because this will seriously test their mentality in combating against relegation.

Predictions for relegation:

Norwich
I don't see Norwich able to escape the drop at the end of the season, with tricky ties to Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea. This may be a long slog for them. It'll take a good few wins and a whole lot of luck, so I don't see it happening


Page to continually be updated

LIVERPOOL NA NA NA!!!! - CHAMPIONS OF ENGLAND 19/20

Champions of England

Need we say more? This season is done after 31 games. Most Games to go at 7, least amount of games to win the PL. Football has been so good all season, with heavy wins from Everton, Man City and Leicester. Here are some of the factors that really played in Liverpool's way.

1. CONSISTENCY

There is no doubt beyond anybody's mind that consistency played a part there. Gotten 97 points last season and it is possible that we can actually eclipse this amount including the 100 set by Man City. We've only dropped 7 points so far. 2 draws and 1 defeat and all it has to do with keeping stuff plain and simple.

2. FORTRESS ANFIELD

With or without fans, Anfield serves as the Home Base of our operations, and a formidable one at that. We've yet to lose at home in the PL for almost 2 seasons straight.

3. NEVER SAY DIE MENTALITY

Sure we may have picked a few knocks along the way with heavy injuries to Matip, Alisson, earlier. And in the initial phase of the season we've been behind in games, and time and time again we turn them into late game wins or snatch a point like Lallana's equaliser vs United.

4. DISCIPLINED DEFENSE

Only 21 goals conceeded, which is like 0.67 goals shipped in per game is not bad. Sure we may have went behind a few times but we compacted ourselves whenever we go between thirds of the field. Also we were still leaking in goals alot with Adrian in Goal, but we managed to secure a lot of clean sheets later part of the season. If that wasn't enough, Alisson may have missed of third of games to injury, but he's still in the leading pack for the Golden Glove, quite an achievement to be honest with ya.

My Man of the season: It's actually difficult to pinpoint who has been the stand out performer because all of them have been consistent. But there are few I can give a shout out. Sadio Mane, Virgil Van Dijk and Jordan Henderson. 4 Cups in a single calendar year is pretty crazy if you ask me.

WHAT WENT WRONG FOR DEFENDING CHAMPIONS CITY?

A lot of things worked in our favor and there's no doubt there's a lot of things going wrong for the defending Champions, and going wrong BADLY. And at the time of this writing, they've lost 8 of their 31 games and drew 3. And off these 9 games, there were 2 pairs of double legged (meaning both Home and Away) losses (Wolves of all teams and Manchester United) and another pair of double legged games where City Lost Points (Tottenham 1D 1L). Here's a quick breakdown on what happened.

1. Injury to Laporte and Shambolic Defenses.

Laporte is no doubt a world class center back. And his presence and absence are both felt on and off the pitch. Without a fit replacement, Fernandinho has to abandon his duties as a defensive midfielder to fit in as a center back which is not in his natural position. With only Otemendi and John stones as the only CBs left and John having muscle injuries since September, it ain't ideal. As a result, their defenses are absolutely in shambles. It's like Liverpool's glassy backline of Karius and Lovren, Moreno and Klavan again.

2. Lack of Leadership

With Vincente Kompany gone, there's a lack of capable leaders that whose leadership can come anywhere close to the talismanic figure of Kompany. These are big boots to fill, but the vice captains that take over from his position, can't really command the backline as effectively.

3. Failure to reinforce and a rapidly aging squad

As if the lack of fit center backs ain't enough, face it their squad is aging quite heavily, with their squad age average at 27.1, their energy levels will wane eventually. Some of them have been in here for ages, like Aguero, Kyle Walker, Fernandinho, David Silva still playing well in their 30s. Without the services of Laporte, that has come to bite the squad in the ass. It's not the fault of Pep, he's still a world class manager. It's just with the squad aging fast, the balance is totally off.

WHAT NEXT FOR OUR NEW CHAMPIONS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SEASON?

Well, choices are pretty open. Some are crazy enough to want Reds to just eclipse the 100 points set by Man City. Actually I don't need that. Just let fringe and young members to get some starts off their belt. Definite chances I would give to if I were Klopp would be people like Neco Williams, Curtis Jones, Minamino, Harvey Elliot.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't reinforce. Just because of loss of income due to Covid-19, is no valid excuse at all as soon to be defending champions. The team to keep an eye on is Chelsea especially bringing in my priced target Timo Werner in which I'm still pissed about, and Pulisic too, who is on fire, scoring against Man City earlier. Really a world class defender and another Attack Midfielder for us like Koulibaly and Adam Traore would round the squad off nicely. It's either that, or we need to get our youth to be world class in 2 months.