Liverpool's lead at the top is due to much more than good luck

They may have faced some teams at the right time but Slot has improved players to the extent it is their title to lose

- Jonathan Wilson

Eventually, there comes a point at which the fact that everybody seems to be having an off-day when they play against Liverpool has to be taken as a Liverpool thing rather than a quirk of the calendar.

They head into the Christmas fixture pile-up four points clear of Chelsea at the top of the table with a game in hand having lost only one of 16 league matches. While this will always in part be the season when Manchester City imploded, it should also be pointed out that Liverpool at the moment are on course for 93 points; only on four occasions have the team that has gone on to win the Premier League taken more than that.

Even with Liverpool's consistency there's a tendency to look at Sunday's 6-3 win at Tottenham as a result of the inexcusable openness of the hosts rather than of their own excellence.

And it is true that it's easier to play Spurs right now, when they're missing Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, when Ange Postecoglou is doubling down even further on doing things his way, than it might have been at certain other points of the season. But at the same time Spurs tend, relatively at least, to be better against teams who come at them, who give them space behind the defensive line they can attack, and until the game disintegrated into mass silliness in its final quarter, Liverpool gave them a lesson.