Liverpool plumbs its depths looking to create cushion at top of table

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Can Liverpool press on at the top?

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Liverpool travels to Bournemouth this weekend. These games are often called banana skins.

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With the Premier League in the midst of its break-without-taking-a-break — where half the teams were off last week and half this week — Liverpool maintains a two-point lead over Manchester City and Aston Villa, and a five-point lead over Arsenal and Spurs.

City, Villa and Spurs don’t play this week, so Liverpool can restore a five-point lead at the top, but City still will have a game in hand.

Their opponents, Bournemouth, did beat Liverpool at home last season and have been on a roll. The Cherries lost their most recent match, but prior to that had won four in a row.

These are the games you need to win to become champions.

The Reds are missing three of their starting back line with Joel Matip, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold all out injured. They’re also missing Dominik Szoboszlai in midfield, as well as Wataru Endo and Mohammed Salah, who are away for international competition for the whole month. Arguably, that’s six of their best 11 missing.

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With the Reds still in contention for four trophies, depth is vital and those who have stepped in to starting roles — including Ibou Konate, Joe Gomez and Curtis Jones, amongst others — have been brilliant.

Losing Alexander-Arnold may be the most crucial as his backup, Gomez, is already filling in at left back where Robertson’s backup, Kostas Tsimikas, is also out with a broken collarbone.

That will likely press 20-year-old Conor Bradley into not only his first Premier League start at right back, but also just his third appearance with the first team.

Every team will weather some form of injury crisis, but as we saw with Manchester City last week, you have to keep getting results.

City had dealt with the absence of its best player, Kevin De Bruyne, for weeks before he returned as a sub last week, scoring and assisting in the final 15 minutes to turn a 2-1 deficit at Newcastle to a 3-2 win.

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If you have any hope of beating City to the title, you have to win these games — even with more than half your starters missing.

Can Arsenal keep pace?

After losing three of their past five league games and getting booted from the FA Cup by Liverpool, Arsenal’s title hopes are wobbling. It has a struggling Crystal Palace team (one win in its past six games) coming to the Emirates and, seeing as the Gunners are already five points back of Liverpool, they simply can’t afford to fall further off the pace.

Last season, Arsenal had an eight-point lead on City at this phase of the season and collapsed.

Cool heads will be needed to stay in the title race, if the Gunners aren’t in front late, they need to stay patient.

Arsenal has scored 11 goals in the last 15 minutes of games this season — only Liverpool and Luton have scored more.

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Conversely, Crystal Palace have conceded the second-most goals in the last 15 minutes with only Sheffield United having given up more.

What’s going on with all the financial charges?

Everton has already been docked 10 points for financial impropriety. But more charges were brought this week against the Toffees along with Nottingham Forest.

At issue is how much money the clubs spent over the past three seasons vs, revenues.

While the charges are levelled, the clubs are now preparing a defence and this could have a massive impact on the table.

The three promoted clubs, Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United, all sit in the relegation places. But Everton is just one point off the drop zone and Forest are four. More point deductions would surely put either club in peril and give hope to the bottom three to dig out.

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While Everton fans in particular are livid at what they see as unfair treatment, the amount of money both clubs spent on players over and above their revenue generated is a recipe for disaster.

This is exactly why the rules are in place, so teams chasing big names who don’t deliver don’t end up in financial administration, unable to pay players or staff.

Why, then, the fans rightly ask, is Manchester City still cruising along? City has been hit with 115 charges of financial impropriety and nothing has come of it, yet.

The explanation has been that there are so many charges, the case will take time to adjudicate. The Premier League said this week it has a date when the charges will be addressed, but have not made it public yet.

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If Everton faced 10 points docked and face further deductions over a second charge, you can only imagine what punishment City will get.

Relegation? Vacating past titles? Of course it will be appealed, whatever the decision is, but the free-spending mega-clubs have to be held to account if you’re going to lash out punishments to the teams battling relegation.

Have the wheels come off at Newcastle?

At home with a raucous crowd, up 2-1 against Manchester City, it looked like Newcastle was back on track. Then came another collapse to lose its fourth game in a row.

Newcastle is 11 points out of the Champions League places. It wouldn’t shock to see manager Eddie Howe fired at any time.

But strangely, or perhaps predictably, that’s not the worst for the Magpies.

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Bought as part of a sportwashing project by the Saudi Arabian government, just as the LIV Golf tour was invented, the Saudis took to sports to rehabilitate their image after the public revelation their regime murdered U.S. journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It was revealed this week by The Athletic that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, chairman of Newcastle and LIV golf, is being sued in a Canadian court for $74 million for allegedly “having carried out the instructions” of the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), with “malicious intent” of “harming, silencing and ultimately destroying” the family of the country’s former intelligence chief, Dr Saad Aljabri.

Aljabri, a former Saudi intelligence officer, escaped Saudi Arabia in 2017, first for Turkey and then to Canada, where the legal papers have been filed.

Weekend slate

SATURDAY: Arsenal v. Crystal Palace; Brentford v. Nottingham Forest.

SUNDAY: Sheffield United v. West Ham; Bournemouth v. Liverpool.

MONDAY: Brighton v. Wolves.

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