Assessing the 2024/25 Premier League campaign: Did Arsenal & City injuries hand Liverpool the title? | OneFootball

Liverpool secured their 20th league title last season, drawing level with Manchester United as the joint most successful club in the Premier League.

Jurgen Klopp’s exit, coupled with an unremarkable summer business, led many to believe Liverpool were in a transitional era, but Arne Slot came in and took the Premier League by storm.

Manchester City and Arsenal were expected to go head-to-head for the holy grail for the third year running, but the Reds stunned the division with a renaissance for the ages.

City and Arsenal had their moments, but they were thwarted by recurring injury problems along the way.

While Liverpool won the title on merit, there’ll always be a question about whether the injuries suffered by their two closest rivals played a key role in shaping the title race.

According to data from OLBG, Premier League clubs lost over 21,000 combined days to injuries last season, with Arsenal and City among the most affected teams.

Arsenal suffered 36 injuries, and City weren’t too far behind with 33. Both teams ranked inside the top ten of the league’s most injury-hit teams, but Liverpool somehow managed to avoid such problems.

Slot deserves plenty of praise for keeping his key players fit for long stretches of the season.

Arsenal had hoped to go one step further last season, after finishing as runners-up in the previous two years, but injuries to key players derailed their campaign.

Their 36 injuries was the fourth-highest in the league. The likes of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Magalhaes, William Saliba, Martin Odegaard, and Thomas Partey spent time in the infirmary.

Arsenal subsequently lost their rhythm, and by the time spring came around, Mikel Arteta’s side were chasing shadows and faint hopes of overtaking a relentless Liverpool side.

Meanwhile, City’s injury woes took them out of the equation before they could even find their feet.

You could argue that they had better depth than Arsenal, but losing Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne marked the start of their eventual fall from grace.

Even Erling Braut Haaland wasn’t immune to injuries. At some point during the season, he was sidelined with muscular issues, which provided Pep Guardiola with an entirely different problem to deal with.

City were still competitive, but their aura of inevitability cracked, and it wasn’t long until they went from title challengers to top four contenders.

With Arsenal and City falling by the wayside, it’ll be easy to put Liverpool’s success down to sheer luck.

But luck alone does not win league titles. They still needed to put in the work, and they did. Liverpool won the title on merit. Injuries are a part of football, so it takes nothing away from Liverpool.