What Jurgen Klopp needs for Liverpool to challenge Man City this season – JERMAINE JENAS
It is possible that JURGEN KLOPP has to find “another team” of his three friends on the Liverpool front line if they want to check out Manchester City in the title race.
Former English midfielder Jermaine Jenas expects the top two of last season to return to the Premier League summit in 2019-20, but fears that Anfield’s messiah, Klopp, has not complemented his squad enough in the window of transfer to change the hierarchical order.
Jenas said: “I can’t see beyond Manchester City for the title, and the only team that seems capable of pressuring them, as was the case last season, is Liverpool.”
“But to go beyond City, you have to get stronger, and I’m not sure that Liverpool has done enough in the market this summer to overcome them.”
“That said, Adam Lallana is back, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is back and that will give them extra dimensions in the midfield.”
“And when you possibly have the best first three in Europe – Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane – it is difficult to improve that area of the team.
“Although City only won the title for a single point, I felt there was more to come from the first three, more to give. Do you have another team to find?
Jenas believes that the strange arsenal of points from City and Liverpool last season (they won 195 of a possible 228 between them) will not be repeated.
He added: “The numbers last season were ridiculous, but I don’t see that City and Liverpool need 100 points to win the title this time.
“I suspect that people like Leicester, Everton and Wolves will remove enough points from the first six to make the table more compact.”
Jermaine Jenas has joined Express Sport as a columnist of the season.
Jermaine Jenas will be writing for Express Sport this season (Image: BT SPORT)
Jermaine is ambassador of footie5 of thepools.com. footie5 is a free weekly football prediction game in which you can win £ 25,000 just by predicting the five-game scores of the English and Scottish leagues. Create leagues with family and friends and bet on the jackpot. Download the application or play at www.footie5.com.