Liverpool captain predicts EPL title race isn’t only between Liverpool and Man City

Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson believes it would be wrong to assume that this season’s title race will be a two-horse race between Liverpool and Manchester City.

City and Liverpool have dominated the Premier League recently, with Pep Guardiola’s team winning the title four times and Jürgen Klopp’s side once in the last five years.

As was the case in the 2018-19 season, Liverpool and City were involved in a nail-biting title race that the Merseysiders lost by just one point after a frenetic final day.

Henderson, the Liverpool captain, has been impressed by the summer recruitment of Chelsea, who are on the verge of signing Raheem Sterling, and Tottenham Hotspur, who have brought in Richarlison and Yves Bissouma, and believes that Manchester United will be a tougher opponent this season too.

“I never think it will be just us and City,” Henderson, the 32-year-old midfielder, said. “The other teams have strengthened. You look at Chelsea, they are strengthening, United will strengthen, Spurs have done so quite a lot so far. You look at other teams who are also going to strengthen.

 “We have bought some new players and hopefully they can help us going forward and freshen things up but we have to keep doing what we have been doing for a large period of time, concentrate on what we can do and perform to the levels we are capable of.”

Of those new additions, Darwin Núñez, signed from Benfica for up to £85 million, is the most eye-catching. The Uruguayan forward, 24, scored 32 goals last season. Henderson hopes that he will be able to help fill the void left by Sadio Mané, who departed for Bayern Munich last month.

“For any team that loses Sadio, it will be a big blow because he is world-class player,” Henderson said.

 “For me he is one of the best forwards in the world so it’s always going to be difficult losing him. But at the same time — we’ve got world-class players, especially in the forward line, Luis Díaz coming, who performed phenomenally well [last season]. Darwin has come in, Bobby’s [Roberto Firmino] is coming back, so we’ve got world-class options. And things move on, change, hopefully we can adapt to that quickly.”

The initial signs from Núñez are positive. In the searing heat of Bangkok, the Uruguayan forward gave fans a glimpse of his potential in an open training session attended by around 10,000 fans.

The forward was a bustling presence in the box during training drills at the Rajamangala Stadium. He scored six of his goals with his head last year, and with his upper body strength, he will add physicality to Liverpool’s front line.

“Darwin certainly gives us a different option for sure, in the way he plays and we’ve got to adapt to that quickly, get used to it,” Henderson said. Darwin is hopefully a huge player for us going forward, and we have some young players coming through as well.”

Núñez himself may have to wait for his Liverpool debut as he could miss the friendly against Manchester United in Bangkok after complaining of blisters during the previous night’s training session.

Liverpool won the FA Cup and Carabao Cup last season, but as well as being pipped to the post by City in the Premier League, they lost in the Champions League final to Real Madrid.

Henderson insists that defeat is out of the players’ heads. “There’s no need [to think about that],” he said. “We have had disappointments in the past and we didn’t have hangovers so we have always reacted in the right way, we still won two trophies last year so it’s not all negative, there were still positives to take out of it. It was a fantastic season.

“Yes, it didn’t end the way we would have liked but that’s football, that’s life, you get on with it and react in the right way and we just want to go again, to perform.”