Liverpool's Premier League Challenge: Theo Walcott's Predictions
Theo Walcott has branded Liverpool “probably the hardest team to call” going into the new Premier League season – but he still expects them to come roaring back from last year’s slump.
Andoni Iraola’s first competitive game in charge takes him to Newcastle on Sunday, with Liverpool arriving as something they haven’t been for a long time: a genuine unknown.
Liverpool, the league’s great riddle
Six pre-season games, six different moods. Three wins, a draw, two defeats. Enough flashes of quality to excite, enough defensive lapses to worry. Trying to draw a straight line from that to a 38-game campaign feels like guesswork.
They start this season from a very different place. Twelve months ago, they were defending champions. Now they’re coming off a flat, fifth-place finish and a transfer window that has yet to properly catch fire. The aura of inevitability has gone; the questions haven’t.
Walcott, though, sees upside where others see risk.
Walcott backs Liverpool as Arsenal’s main threat
Speaking to BBC Sport, the former Arsenal forward set out a bolder vision for Iraola’s first year.
“Liverpool are probably the hardest team to call. Iraola is an excellent manager and if Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz have big seasons, they could absolutely push Arsenal for the title,” the 37-year-old said.
Walcott has tipped his old club to finish top, with Liverpool as runners-up and Manchester City and Chelsea rounding out his predicted top four. For a side many view as a work in progress, that is a striking show of faith.
His forecast hinges heavily on two players. If Isak and Wirtz hit elite levels across the campaign, Walcott believes Liverpool can live with Arsenal over the long haul.
Pundits split on Iraola’s Liverpool
Not everyone sees it that way. The spread of predictions underlines just how enigmatic this Liverpool side feels.
Paul Merson is on the Walcott side of the fence, also backing the Reds to finish second. At the other end of the spectrum, former Liverpool defender Steve Nicol has warned Iraola’s team might not even crack the top six.
That gap between “title push” and “outside the European places” tells its own story. Nobody quite knows which version of Liverpool will turn up from week to week – or month to month.
A more measured view sits somewhere in between. A climb from fifth feels achievable; a sustained title challenge still looks a stretch on current evidence.
Brilliant going forward, brittle at the back
Pre-season under Iraola has offered a clear glimpse of what this Liverpool might become. When they click, they attack with a swagger that can overwhelm opponents. The patterns are sharp, the movement aggressive, the tempo relentless.
The problem lies in what happens when they lose the ball.
They still look exposed on the counter. Set pieces remain an issue, with cheap goals conceded from dead-ball situations that better-drilled sides simply don’t give up. That combination – thrilling going forward, fragile when turned – will be familiar to anyone who watched Liverpool in the Brendan Rodgers era or the early months under Jurgen Klopp.
At their best, they could blow teams away. Over a season, that kind of chaos rarely wins titles.
A new feel after a wretched campaign
What does seem certain is that Liverpool will be far easier on the eye than they were in Arne Slot’s grim second season, when the football grew stale and the mood around Anfield followed suit.
Iraola’s approach promises energy and risk, and there is still time left in the window for Liverpool to add the reinforcements that could harden them up in key areas. Any late business could tilt the balance between “fun but flawed” and something more serious.
For now, the mood around the club is cautiously upbeat. There is belief that fifth can be improved on, that the football will be livelier, the atmosphere brighter.
Just not, at least from most corners, with quite the same conviction as Theo Walcott.
