Relentless Liverpool on course for record-breaking season

Nobody at Liverpool dares talk about winning the Premier League. After 30 years without winning English football’s top-flight title, there’s a sense that careless words might jinx a potentially history-making season that — so far — has been almost perfect.

Liverpool has twice won the Champions League since 1990, but that league title has proved elusive, though Liverpool came very close to winning the Premier League in 2014, before Manchester City took the honors.

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So the message from manager Jurgen Klopp and his players is to only think about the next match.

“We try just to stay focused on the next game and do our best on the pitch,” Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker told the club website on Monday following the Reds’ 1-0 away win at Tottenham Hotspur. Manchester City might have beaten Aston Villa 6-1 on Sunday, but the Premier League champion remains 14 points behind Liverpool, with the current leaders having played one less game.

READ: Liverpool makes best-ever start to a Premier League season

“We celebrate this victory then we have some days off to rest and have time with family,” added Alisson.

“But when we are back in training, we need to be really focused on the next game, which is an important game for us in the continuity of the race for the title. We are doing really well so far, as the boss always says, we are being the best so far and we need only to keep going, keep pushing and do our best.”

Saturday’s win at Spurs ensured that Liverpool has now made the best start to a season in the history of the Premier League.

Klopp’s side has notched up 61 points from its first 21 games to surpass Manchester City’s record of 59 points set during its title-winning 2017-2018 season. Liverpool’s start also is the most successful in Europe’s big five soccer leagues.

Jurgen Klopp’s team, which has won 20 league games this season and drawn just once to Manchester United, is now unbeaten in 38 league games, equivalent to a whole season.

READ: Sergio Aguero hits scoring landmark as Manchester City thrash Aston Villa

Liverpool has also conceded only 14 goals in those 21 games and has kept six clean sheets in the last six league matches.

“We don’t think too much about breaking records but it’s good when you break them,” said Alisson. “We just want to keep going, to keep playing, to keep doing our best to make the fans happy, to make our family proud, to make the boss proud because we work a lot every day to come here on the pitch on a matchday and win the game.

“So, we do everything that is in our hands to make it happen and we are really happy with the three points and a clean sheet also.”

The Daily Mail’s Oliver Holt described Liverpool as a “machine, crushing all before them as they roll on towards a title that is already almost within their grasp.

“Liverpool’s recent record is dizzyingly, stupefyingly good, better than anything we have seen before, better than anything Europe has seen before,” added Holt.

“It is inevitable that there will be more and more talk of whether Liverpool can now go on to emulate Arsenal’s “Invincibles” of 2003-04 and go the whole season unbeaten. This was one banana skin that they have leapt over.”

If Liverpool does maintain its machine-like form, it could break a number of other Premier League records by the end of the season.

• Manchester City set the record for most points — 100 — in the 2017/18 season.
• Manchester City is the current holder of the most consecutive — 20 — home wins. Liverpool has won its last 18 Premier League home matches.
• Between August and December 2017, Manchester City won 18 consecutive league games. Liverpool has won 12 successive league matches
• Dubbed the “Invincibles,” Arsenal went 49 matches unbeaten. Liverpool is currently 37 matches unbeaten.
• As part of that “Invincible” run, Arsenal went unbeaten throughout the 2003/2004 season, a mark that Liverpool can match if it doesn’t lose in its next 17 games.
• Arsenal went 537 days without defeat between May 2003 and October 2004. Liverpool was last beaten — by Manchester City on January 3 — and if it avoids defeat this season could surpass Arsenal’s record on June 23.
• City holds the record for the most wins in a season — 32 — a feat Pep Guardiola’s team achieved in the previous two campaigns. Liverpool has won 20 games this season.
• During the 2017/2018 season, City set the record for the most away wins — 16 — in a season. So far Liverpool has won eight of its nine games.