Why it’s nonsense to suggest this has been a boring Premier League season, writes IAN LADYMAN

• Liverpool are on course to win the Premier League with four games remaining
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By IAN LADYMAN

Those football supporters screaming that the Premier League has been boring this season obviously don’t remember the last time Liverpool won the title. In 2020, Jurgen Klopp’s team sprinted to the tape 19 points clear of the pack.

We don’t know how big the gap may be this time. Arne Slot’s version of Liverpool may stop playing if they wrap it up on Sunday. But the point is that some people believe the lack of a tight finish reflects poorly on the league.

It doesn’t. Liverpool’s season has been quite normal for a champion team. They have played well on the whole, brilliantly at times and have had to come through a couple of spells where they have been less impressive. Over the years, that’s the way it’s tended to be. The problem is that briefly – for a handful of golden years – Klopp’s Liverpool and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City broke the rules and in doing so skewed everybody’s idea of what a title race should look like.

Under Klopp, Liverpool breached the 90-point mark three times and won the league just once. To finish a season with 97 points – as they did in 2019 – and 92 points – as they did in 2022 – and lift the trophy on neither occasion feels all the more remarkable the more that time moves on.

Those were fantastical times at the top of the Premier League. It could not last and it hasn’t lasted. What we are witnessing now – as City seek to rebuild and other big clubs struggle for the right formula – is merely what we saw when clubs like Chelsea won the title by large margins in 2005 and 2006, Manchester United did so in 2011 and 2013 and indeed City did in 2018 and 2021.

Slot’s Liverpool have been the best team this season and the scale of the achievement in the Dutchman’s debut English season should not be underplayed. Arsenal could not handle the rigours of the stretch this time while Liverpool could. They deserve only our congratulations as do the clubs have started to improve and apply pressure further down the ladder.

Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool were 19 points clear of the pack when they won the Premier League five years ago – this season has not been boring

Klopp’s Liverpool and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City skewed everybody’s idea of what a title race should look like

Arne Slot’s Liverpool have been the best team this season but this is what we should expect

Nottingham Forest, Newcastle and Aston Villa have shown themselves to be upwardly mobile while Brighton, Brentford, Fulham and now Bournemouth are increasingly competitive.

Liverpool have been too good this time but I suspect they will need to improve to be so next season and that’s a positive sign. Ignore the gloom. Our league – with the exception of clear issues right at the bottom – is healthy.

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Why it’s nonsense to suggest this has been a boring Premier League season, writes IAN LADYMAN

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