Has there ever been a more open and competitive title race in Premier League history than the one we are currently experiencing? If there is, I can’t remember it.

We are fast approaching the half-way point of the season, which is when we normally see the men being separated from the boys, with a few teams at the top putting clear daylight between themselves and the rest.

 Yet, by my possibly faulty reckoning, there are still nine teams in with a realistic – or at least semi-realistic – shout of being crowned champions in May.

At the time of writing, just six points separate Liverpool at the top from Southampton down in ninth place, which is a tiny gap in comparison to where we usually are at this stage in proceedings.

In fact, last season at this point, Liverpool were a whopping 24 points ahead of Sheffield United, who were in ninth, and an unreachable 20 points ahead of Wolverhampton Wanderers in fifth. The season before, Manchester City were 19 points ahead of Leicester City in ninth.

When you look at those past figures, a six-point difference is absolutely miniscule in comparison.

Of course, with the games coming thick and fast right now the situation could have changed between my writing this and you reading it. However, it won’t have changed so much that the observation is no longer valid. Six points may have become nine, but that’s still a small enough gap to be bridged.

And the really beautiful thing about this season is that I actually wouldn’t be entirely shocked or even more than mildly surprised if someone we really didn’t expect to lift the trophy goes on to do just that.

That’s because each and every one of those top nine has, on any given day, the ability to beat any of the others. Would you say, for example, that when Everton play Southampton it is a home banker? Or that Leicester will definitely beat Aston Villa? Are Liverpool certain to beat Manchester United?

No, of course you wouldn’t, and that is because the teams are all pretty evenly matched – each capable of putting in fantastic performances but equally prone to mini meltdowns.

It goes without saying, of course, that Liverpool remain favourites at this stage. They are top of the pile, have the experience of last season’s title victory behind them and, on paper at least, have the most rounded and complete squad.

But even Jurgen Klopp’s boys are not having it all their own way this season.

The memorable 7-2 defeat to Aston Villa may have been the headline grabbing result, but Liverpool’s draws with Fulham, Brighton and Hove Albion and West Bromwich Albion are just as significant. If not more so.

The teams are each capable of putting in fantastic performances but equally prone to mini meltdowns

The point being that even the best team in England is capable of dropping points when you least expect it this season – and that is giving hope and belief to everyone from Leicester to Villa to Southampton.

So why is it all going so weird?

Well, it is pretty much entirely down to the disruption caused by the battle against COVID-19. The fact that fans have not been in attendance for the vast majority of games is unquestionably having an impact on results. The power of home advantage, crucial for many teams, has all but evaporated.

Equally, however, I think not having crowds around has made teams – especially smaller teams – realise their opponents are merely human.

Mo Salah running into your penalty box with 60,000 fans screaming is considerably more daunting than it is inside an empty stadium when only a few stewards are there to get excited. The great players are still great players, of course, but they have been reduced from mythical to mere super-human.

I’ve heard some players say the eerie silence inside the grounds has made it feel more like they are having a kick about with their mates than playing a Premier League match.

And that has allowed smaller teams to play with less fear and angst when they come up against the bigger sides. Which is why, as 2020 rolls into 2021, nearly half the teams in the top-flight will believe they have some sort of chance of winning the league.

COVID has levelled the playing field a little bit. Now let’s see if anybody can take advantage of that to give us some truly unexpected champions come May.

Assuming the season gets that far, of course…

A farewell to Gerard

Charles Sciberras sent me an e-mail last week wondering why I hadn’t written anything about the sad death of Gerard Houllier last month.

And that’s a very fair point.

The only reason, Charles, is that, with the death of Diego Maradona and Paolo Rossi in relatively quick succession, I felt that covering another death from the football world, no matter how significant, would have made things start to feel a bit morbid.

But that absolutely doesn’t reduce my respect or admiration for Houllier who was, by all accounts, an absolute gem of a man and, as we all know, a rather good manager.

Many people who knew him well have been recalling their top Houllier stories over the past few weeks, and all of them paint a picture of a man who ate, lived and breathed football.

My favourite is probably the journalist who recalled how Gerard phoned up after a bad result to get some feedback – not from the journalist, but from his girlfriend.

Apparently, Gerard knew she was a passionate Liverpool fan and thought he would get a more honest assessment of his mistakes from her than anybody else. So he spent half an hour chatting to her, working out what he had done wrong, what errors he had made with his substitutions.

That’s the sort of way I think he would like to be remember – as an incredibly affable man with a love and passion for football that was quite possibly unrivalled in his era.

Happy New Year everyone! Let’s hope 2021 sees the whole world, sport included, get back to something a little more normal.

email: james@quizando.com
twitter: @maltablade