In the early morning of December 29, Beijing time, the 20th round of the Premier League, Liverpool lost to Leicester City in the away game, ending the last 10 unbeaten, 9 wins and 1 draw, and losing 2 consecutive games against Leicester City for the first time in this century. In the game, Liverpool once again exposed the weak underbelly of the squad, a set of strong teams began to lack of staying power, Salah, Mane and others began to show weakness, the two missed the perfect opportunity to break the goal, so that the team more than 20 shots on goal but did not return, but was defeated by Leicester City, which only shot 1 time in the whole game.
After the 1-0 loss to Leicester City, Liverpool began to fall behind in the Premier League table, being left behind by a six-point gap by Manchester City at the top of the table, with City leading with 47 points and Liverpool with only 41 points. To make matters worse, Liverpool's 3 lines are afraid of an avalanche, after this round to open the Devil's schedule in January 2022, playing 6 games in a row in January, including 3 Premier League games (successively against Chelsea, Brentford, Crystal Palace), 1 FA Cup third round (against Shrewsbury), 2 Premier League Semi-finals (two legs against Arsenal), due to Salah and Mane 2 superstars playing the African Cup, confirmed to leave the team for a month, which means that Liverpool is afraid of a full avalanche on the 3 fronts of the Premier League, FA Cup and English League Cup.
Based on historical results, Liverpool also won at the end of the year last season, and then began to see an avalanche in January 2021, with only 2 wins and 4 defeats in 6 games in January. Salah and Mane's absence from January's game has led to Liverpool's next January 2022 match likely to be worse than January 2021. Salah has scored 22 goals and 9 assists in 25 games in all competitions this season, which can be said to be a super thigh on the offensive end, Mane has scored 9 goals and assisted 1 time in 25 games, Klopp can hardly find a player who can replace the two, Liverpool need to strengthen the thickness of the squad in the winter window, otherwise this season's championship will be a role to accompany the runner.
The 2022 Africa Cup of Nations will kick off on 9 January and will not end until 6 February. Liverpool are the most influential team in the Premier League title competition, losing the two offensive cores of Salah and Mane in one fell swoop. Although Premier League champions Manchester City have also been affected, only Mahrez is participating in the Africa Cup of Nations. More importantly, the thickness of Manchester City's squad is still the only gear in the Premier League, making their stability in the Premier League also unique, and recently achieved 9 consecutive Premier League wins, renting 3 Premier League games to blast 17 goals, full of momentum.
Mahrez has scored 12 goals and assisted 5 times in 24 games for Manchester City in all competitions this season, during which only 16 games have been started, the efficiency is quite high, after he returns to the Algerian national team to participate in the African Cup of Nations, Manchester City has a number of players in the same position can carry out healthy competition, Sterling, Jesus, Glaliche, Foden and others will get more room to play, if Guardiola decides to make up for the super goalscorer in the winter window to impact the Champions League, Manchester City's attack will be more terrifying and the record will be more stable. As long as the current stable state is maintained, Manchester City will further open up the points advantage in the next two months, repeating the trajectory of last season's title, and Guardiola will have more energy to lead the team to the Champions League trophy.