Mourinho: Liverpool can still win EPL title

JOSE Mourinho believes Liverpool are still very much in the race to retain their Premier League title despite the champions slipping to fifth place.

Jurgen Klopp’s side swept to the title last season but are now seven points off leaders Manchester City with half of the campaign gone.

Liverpool have won only once in the Premier League since they beat Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield in mid-December and the two sides face each other again on Thursday.

“When you win it once you know you have the team to win it twice,” Mourinho said during his pre-match press call on Wednesday. 

“When you never win it you have always questions: What do we need to win it? We are not good enough to win it, what do we need to improve to win it?

“When you win it you know you are the best team and Liverpool was not just about winning, it was about winning so comfortably. So they know the team they are and they know the players they have. And they know they can do it again.

“Would anyone expect Liverpool to have a similar run to last season when winning, winning and winning non-stop? I would not expect that as what they did was so difficult. And to win it the second time in the same way is even more difficult. But to win the title again I think they believe they can and I believe that is what they really want.”

Mourinho, whose team will overtake Liverpool with a win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, suggested that the Reds could soon find their form again.

“Not one team started with winning and is still winning after 19 matches and a few months of competition,” the Portuguese, who won three Premier League titles with Chelsea in two spells, added.

 “Everyone has a difficult period. Some early, some later, some in the middle.

“There has been great evolution in the teams considered historically to be on a level below.

“And then Liverpool had a period where the results are not going in their direction. But the coach is the same, the players are the same and the team is the same?”