Best Title Race Ever? Klopp Forgets Huddersfield’s Battle with Cardiff

Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)
Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)
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Best Title Race Ever? Klopp Forgets Huddersfield’s Battle with Cardiff

Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)
Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)

“It is,” Jürgen Klopp said, “the most exciting season for years.” We’ll be the judge of that, sunshine. The strangest thing about Klopp’s assertion, leaving its veracity to one side for the moment, was that he said it at the start of November, when every team in the Premier League still had 28 games to play. It was like declaring a fresh if vigorous shoot in the vegetable patch the finest carrot in the land, when it might still fail to flourish or be consumed by pests – and there remains an outside chance that it’s a parsnip.

Five months later teams seem to have taken control of the title races in three of the four divisions of the English league, and two have already been relegated from the top flight. One domestic cup final was goalless and in the other one Manchester City will play a side they routinely, reliably and predictably beat. But for as long as the key battle at the top of the Premier League remains undecided, the season remains undefined. It may yet come to be remembered as a good season, perhaps even a great one. The all-time title, however, is already taken.

Precisely 95 years ago a match was played that was to decide the tightest title chase of all time, a match still talked about today – mainly by certain history-obsessed Cardiff City fans, but nevertheless. It says something about the changes seen to the world of sporting journalism over the last near-century that the Guardian’s report on this game ran to precisely 70 words, just over a ninth of the space dedicated that day to lacrosse. The Times gave it 77 words, not quite the same as the ones in the Guardian but suspiciously similar, in a page dominated by a lengthy report on the first day’s play at the Public Schools Rackets Championship.

On this weekend in 1924, as this year Cardiff played Burnley on the Saturday. Unlike this year they were playing not to avoid relegation but for ultimate glory, and they had to play again on the Monday against the team with which they were destined to end the season tied at the top of the table. “It was an exciting game,” we reported, “but the importance of the occasion overcame the forwards when they got within shooting range with the result that nothing was scored.” Or, as the Times had it, “It was a hard-fought game, in which it was apparent that the players realized its importance, with the result that there was too much eagerness shown, especially near goal.”

There was, inevitably, a little more to it than that. The Western Mail declared it “probably the most momentous league match every to be played at Ninian Park”, but crucially the Cardiff forward pairing of Jimmy Gill and Len Davies failed to rise to the occasion. Each had one golden chance, and spurned it. Davies “seemed undecided what to do, and then half-heartedly drove in a left-foot shot which went at least two yards wide,” wrote the Western Mail, while Gill “appeared to lose all self-control and timidly shot for goal”.

The Welsh newspaper declared “that the City were the better side is beyond dispute”. Leeds Mercury, based a little closer to Huddersfield, said that “Huddersfield, after more than holding their own, deserved a point”, while the Yorkshire Post said that “Huddersfield’s defense was perfect … their work was more methodical in every department and it would be hard to find one weak spot”.

The result left Huddersfield and Cardiff level on points, but the Terriers had two games in hand. The Western Mail wrote that it would “require all the optimism their supporters can command to believe that the City have not thrown away their last chance of securing the title”. As it turned out, however, they would have the chance to throw away one more.

Huddersfield having profoundly fluffed those games in hand on the final day, Cardiff traveled to Birmingham knowing they would win the league if they at least matched the Terriers’ result. “It is no exaggeration to remark that seldom have the closing stages of a season produced more excitement,” gushed the Observer. “Cardiff’s 11th-hour recovery has placed them well in the running again, until now it might almost be said that they will be just a little unlucky to lose.”

By the time the final whistle sounded there could be no doubt about it. During the second half at St. Andrew’s, the scores still level, Gill headed a corner towards goal and the Birmingham goalkeeper was stranded. The ball soared towards the net, nothing now standing between Cardiff and victory – except the Birmingham full-back Eli Ashurst, who dived full length to punch it clear. It was cheating of the cruelest kind. Davies’ penalty was saved, and the only genuine chance of the league title that Cardiff have ever had went with it. Huddersfield won 3-0 and pipped their rivals to the title by virtue of a goal average superior by 0.024 of a goal – had they scored just one goal fewer all season, or Cardiff one goal more, all would have been different. And it wasn’t even the most closely-contested significant league position of the season, or even the day.

That afternoon in Derby, the home side knew they had to beat Leicester by five goals to vault Bury, whose season was already over, and steal promotion to the top flight. They were three up at half-time but could muster only one more and thus missed out, their goal average inferior by 0.015.

This February, with at least 11 matches remaining, Robbie Fowler called the battle between Liverpool and Manchester City “the best title race in living memory”. That is a lot of title races to dismiss with one sweeping and almost certainly under-researched generalization, but the current campaign does have one thing in its favor that no other season in sporting history can claim: we don’t know how it ends yet.

The Guardian Sport



Mohamed Salah: Liverpool’s Egyptian King

Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)
Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)
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Mohamed Salah: Liverpool’s Egyptian King

Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)
Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)

A living legend in Liverpool, Mohamed Salah has two more years to burnish his astonishing legacy at Anfield after extending his contract on Friday.

In the midst of constant speculation over his future, the 32-year-old has produced one of the great all-time individual seasons to take the Reds to the brink of the Premier League title.

The Egyptian has scored 27 goals and provided 17 assists in 31 league appearances to help Arne Slot's men open up an 11-point lead for with seven games to go.

A third player of the year award from both his fellow players and football writers is a formality as Salah's latest prolific season has propelled him into the debate over who is the greatest player of the Premier League era.

Salah's 184 goals in the English topflight is the joint fifth highest in Premier League history, while he also now sits in the top 10 for assists.

He did not arrive at Anfield as a superstar destined for greatness when Liverpool paid Roma £34 million ($44 million) for his services in 2017.

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah lifts the trophy after winning the Champions League final match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid, on June 2, 2019. (AP)

As a pacy winger with promise, Salah had hitherto struggled for consistency and end product with a string of European clubs since making the move from his homeland to Swiss side Basel as a 19-year-old.

Salah failed to make the grade in his first spell in the Premier League at Chelsea as the Blues discarded him after just 19 games in what proved to be a monumental mistake.

A move to Italy, firstly on loan at Fiorentina, before heading to Roma on a permanent basis restored Salah's reputation to tempt Liverpool into taking a punt on his potential, even if he was not Jurgen Klopp's first choice.

The German manager had wanted his compatriot Julian Brandt instead, but was convinced by the club's recruitment team and together they rebuilt the Reds into a force of English and European football once more.

- Fitness fanatic -

Klopp did not take long to be convinced as Salah scored 44 times in a stunning debut season, leading Liverpool to the Champions League final and a top-four Premier League finish.

He was quickly christened "The Egyptian King" on Merseyside and soon the trophies began to flow like his goals.

Salah left the 2018 Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid in tears after being forced off by a shoulder injury in the first half which also limited the impact he could make for his country at the World Cup finals in Russia a few weeks later.

One year on, he scored in the final as Liverpool beat Tottenham 2-0 to deliver the first silverware of the Klopp era.

The club's first Premier League title for 30 years followed in the coronavirus-disrupted 2019/2020 season.

The FA Cup, two League Cups and another run to the Champions League final in 2022 underlined Liverpool's return to serial trophy contenders under Klopp -- and with it Salah's heightened status within the game and further afield.

He was named among Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2019 in which he was described as an "iconic figure for Egyptians, Scousers and Muslims the world over."

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah controls the ball during the English Premier League match between Liverpool and Newcastle United at Anfield stadium in Liverpool, England, on Dec. 16, 2021. (AP)

Salah has used that profile to call for greater gender equality in the Arab world and to appeal for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza following an Israeli air bombardment last year.

However, he has mostly done his talking on the field.

A fitness fanatic, Salah regularly posts images of his workouts on social media which he credits for allowing him to remain among the world's best despite his advancing age.

Klopp's emotional departure last year was seen by many as the end of an era for this Liverpool side.

Instead, in the first season under Dutch coach Slot, Salah has been the catalyst for an unexpected cruise towards the Premier League title.

"It's not a coincidence because the first day I arrived over here, we did a fitness test and he was our fittest player," said Slot.

"So it tells you what his plans were for the season. It also tells you a player that has so many great seasons at a club like this comes back like that tells you a lot about his personality."