This perception was reiterated by jose Mourinho. “They’re the best team in the world,” the Portuguese proclaimed late on Saturday, not long after his team had turned into lightning Liverpool’s latest victims and a footnote to another album for Jurgen Klopp’s side. The 1-0 victory at Tottenham Hotspur carried the Premier League leaders to 61 points from 21 matches this season, making it the best beginning to a campaign in the history of any group in Europe’s top leagues. Greater than Barcelona, better than Bayern Munich. A little closer to home, better than Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. Considering that the dominance of 2017-18 of City, that was deemed impossible. However, Liverpool are currently making the improbable possible. They are unbeaten in 38 matches in the English top flight. They have been endorsed to complete this campaign as only the second “Invincibles” of the Premier League era; emulating the 2003-04 Arsenal side edges closer by the week. Across those 38 matches, 104 points have been accrued by Liverpool, courtesy of 33 victories and five stalemates. They have posted a record complete demonstrating a 38-game spell by any group in the competition’s history, surpassing the haul Mourinho’s Chelsea, and by Guardiola’s City. Their last defeat was over a year ago, away to City, as the winners set about clawing back a deficit. Now 16 apparent — Leicester City are City one point back in third — the gap feels the unassailable, a chasm.
With no league title in 30 years, Liverpool are champions-elect.”They’re exceptional, brilliant to see and doing everything a championship-winning team should be doing,” said Gary Neville, the former Manchester United stalwart now in his function as a pundit on British TV, whose commendation of his own arch-rivals would no doubt cut him to his heart. “I can’t see anybody stopping them.”Practically, who can? Not if they roll through the gears like they did in the success at Leicester during the festive period, contrary to their nearest challengers and just days following their FIFA Club World Cup victory in the Gulf. Not when they do click, like against Spurs, Wolves and Watford — on Saturday — and still emerge with all the points. Like the teams, Liverpool and mettle merge. They are balanced, in out of reach and tune.
The winner at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium of Roberto Firmino means Liverpool have scored in 30 consecutive league matches, a club record. It surpasses the mark set in the 1957-58 season, when the Merseysiders existed in the old Division 2. Now, they are at the top of the tree to rule. They are European winners and champions of the planet, as well. The bedrock was their defence, even though Sadio Mane Firmino and Mohamed Salah embroider the attack. The blank sheet against Spurs has been Liverpool’s sixth shutout in the league, the club’s best run because of Rafa Benitez’s mean tenure in 2006. But while history is being rewritten, Klopp is maintaining cool.”When someone told me [about the documents ] I did not feel anything, to tell the truth,” the German said instantly after viewing off Spurs. “I’ve been in football 50 decades and when someone told me that would happen I would say it was not possible.”Now it’s happened and I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with me. Nonetheless, it’s cool; it’s exceptional. If that winning streak was easy then many other teams would have done it”Nevertheless Liverpool are out on their own, at the record books, at the Premier League summit. The unbeaten streak will be tested as the season brings out, together with Uefa Champions League and FA Cup responsibilities bound to take their toll.No matter what Klopp and the club protest, though, the top-flight crown represents the priority. April could secure it, out six games, against City in the Etihad. For what is Europe’s most fearsome team, it could supply a fitting farewell to their most unwanted of waits: that 30-year wait for the Premier League title.
