‘I strongly believes they can catch Man city, if Tuchel can do this! Gary Neville reveals why Chelsea can still catch City in title race
Chelsea are currently ten points behind Manchester City but have played a game more than the leaders.
However, despite the gap, Manchester United legend Gary Neville believes Chelsea can still catch Manchester City in the title race if Thomas Tuchel can get Romelu Lukaku scoring goals again.
Gary Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast: “I think Liverpool are doing really well without two of their main players [Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane].”
“Things like [City’s 1-1 draw at Southampton] give a little bit of encouragement. City are a machine and you don’t expect them to make a lot of mistakes – but they could, and Liverpool and Chelsea have got to believe that.
“I’m not that disappointed in Liverpool because I think they have to be at full pelt all the time to get to City just because they haven’t got the squad that City have got.
“But I do think Chelsea have [the squad] and I expect it to get close. I don’t expect this runaway league; five weeks ago, we expected this three-horse race and we’ve almost been pushed into a feeling that City have won it.
“I don’t think we have got the three-horse race back this weekend through the fact that Chelsea and Liverpool have won and City have drawn, but I don’t think we are going to have that runaway 20-point championship that we have had sometimes with City.
“It can happen. Liverpool have got it in them if they can keep that 11 together and get Sadio Mane and Mo Salah back flying, but this squad that Chelsea have got, if they can get Lukaku absolutely buzzing, bashing people around, backing into them and rolling them like he did in that last half-an-hour [in the 2-0 defeat of Tottenham], and starting to put the ball in the back of the net – there’s so many inventive players you could play around him – so if they can just hit form between them, they can play three games a week because they can change two players every game and not really have a dip.
“Whether it’s Pulisic and Werner or Ziyech and Mount, you don’t see a massive dip in terms of quality when one plays or the other.
“If Thomas Tuchel can keep them all happy, I think they can have a really strong finish to the season, I really do.
“I think the quality in the Premier League this season is outstanding and it doesn’t deserve to have someone winning it by 15 points.”