Carragher Believes Liverpool Are Showing Championship Form

Jamie Carragher admits he would enjoy Liverpool winning this league championship rather more than he did their previous one. "It has been too long since the club won the title — the last time they did, I was an Everton fan," he said with a smile, recalling the triumph under Kenny Dalglish in 1990, when he was 12 years old.

Opinion is divided as to whether Liverpool will stay the course this time and the debate continued yesterday over the relative merits of Sunday's point at the Emirates Stadium against Arsenal, who played for half an hour with 10 men following the dismissal of Emmanuel Adebayor.

Already shorn of Cesc Fábregas, who went off injured at half-time, Arsenal seemed to be there for the taking. Yet it was not until the final five minutes that Liverpool seriously threatened to score a winning goal.

"For the last 18 months, we have probably been one of the hardest teams to beat, we do not lose many games," remarked Carragher, and he has statistics to back him up. Since the beginning of last season, Liverpool have lost only five times in the Premier League. No team has been defeated less.

For Liverpool, though, the challenge is to turn the draws into decisive wins. Victory at Arsenal would not only have completed a notable set this season, after the wins over Manchester United at Anfield and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, it would have given them breathing space at the top of the table and seen them apply pressure on their rivals.

The Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, questioned whether Liverpool had been "scared to push on" while Sammy Lee, the Liverpool coach, said they "had to be very careful not to lose [against 10 men]. If that sounds negative, I make no apologies." If fortune truly does favor the brave, might Liverpool finish short?

Unlike Wenger, Rafael Benítez has been reluctant to portray his team as champions-in-waiting. "For us to win the league, it's necessary for Chelsea, United and Arsenal, who have far greater economic resources than us, to have a bad season," the manager said last week. "It's rare that these three clubs fail at the same time."

There is certainly a measure of reassurance inside the Liverpool dressing room that no single club has so far blazed a trail, although Chelsea and United are expected to be more consistently imposing over the second part of the season. Wenger believes that the title winner will amass fewer than 80 points; Liverpool, one match shy of the halfway point, have 39.

"A lot of teams seem to be taking points off each other, which I think is better," said Carragher. "In the last few years, teams have been winning the league with over 90 points, which makes them look great but it doesn't say a lot for the league.

"Arsenal went unbeaten [in 2003-04] and Chelsea only lost one [in 2004-05] and always got over 90 points [in their title- winning seasons]. You want the league to be more competitive than that. It's a lot more competitive when teams take points off each other, it creates a better league and I think we have seen that this season. It looks like it will be more competitive."

Whatever the view on the point gained at Arsenal, there is consensus that Liverpool's home form is not that of champions. They might remain unbeaten but the four draws in nine games have been the source of frustration.

The tension at Anfield can be palpable, with the wait for a 19th championship playing its part, but Carragher says that the squad are taking their status of frontrunners in their stride. Next up for them is Bolton Wanderers at home on Thursday.

"People keep talking about us being at the top of the league but we are not a small club," said Carragher. "We are Liverpool Football Club. We are where we should be so it's no big deal. We have had a couple of chances [to win the league], we were top at Christmas a couple of times when I first got in the team, but there's still a long way to go.

"It is nothing to do with the mental aspect. The best team wins and other teams have just been better than us. There is no secret ingredient. The best team wins the league in the end and hopefully that will be us."