Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri has ruled Tottenham out of the Premier League title race, despite Spurs leapfrogging Manchester City into second recently.
Chelsea remained unbeaten in the first 12 Premier League games of this season and looked to be mounting a challenge, along with Liverpool and Man City, before a poor run of form saw them slip down to fourth in the table.
Is Sarri right to play down Spurs’ title chances? Five key things to know…
- Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea all remained unbeaten in the opening 12 Premier League games.
- Dips of form from Chelsea and City have seen Liverpool climb to the top of the league.
- Spurs have won their last five league games, taking them above City and Chelsea into second.
- But Sarri still doesn’t see Spurs as contenders, saying City and Liverpool are ‘a step above’.
- Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino, meanwhile, believes the entire top six could still challenge for the title.
Meanwhile, Man City have lost three out of their last four league games, with Spurs taking full advantage and overtaking Pep Guardiola’s side into second place.
However, Sarri has insisted he never saw Chelsea as challengers, while also maintaining that he only sees Liverpool and Man City as true contenders.
“You know very well my opinion. As I said from the beginning of the season there are two teams a step above, Liverpool and Manchester,” he said.
“Now there is a little gap, I think City will be able to recover the gap, the title is fighting between City and Liverpool.”
Chelsea travel to Crystal Palace on Sunday.
Pochettino names his title contenders
In stark contrast to the opinion of Sarri, Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino believes the entire top six are still in with a title chance.
“Now it is between the top six – Liverpool, Tottenham, City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United and it’s going to be more about who can win the league,” he said.
The Argentinean added that he understands why Leicester City received ‘more sympathy’ than Spurs last time the north Londoners were involved in a title race in 2016, but that the Foxes deserved to take the crown that year and that no team will be receiving favours this time around.
“We are not going to receive favour and nor will another club,” he continued. “It’s true, the season when Leicester were there, the sympathy for Leicester was bigger than for Tottenham. That was the reality. But they won and they deserved to be the champions. The sympathy of the neutral people was more for Leicester than for us. This is normal.”
Spurs host Wolves on Saturday.
The post Sarri still sees Man City & Liverpool as title favourites despite Spurs’ challenge appeared first on Squawka News.
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