Steve McManaman believes Liverpool and Manchester City are in the frontline to win the Premier League this campaign, while conceding that Chelsea need to remain at a higher level consistently for longer in order to challenge.
The London side have started the season with four wins and a draw in their opening five league games and currently sit joint top of the table alongside Liverpool.
After a superb second half of last campaign, which saw them win the Champions League and finish fourth in the league, Chelsea added Romelu Lukaku and Saul Niguez to their squad during the summer.
But McManaman believes the Blues may not be enough to keep up with Liverpool and Man City in the race for the title this season.
‘At the start of the season I thought Liverpool were favourites for the Premier League title this year. If everybody remains fit and well then Liverpool, as well as Manchester City, will be the favourites as they’ve set the standard over the last few seasons,’ he told HorseRacing.net.
‘Chelsea have improved their starting eleven by signing Romelu Lukaku and his signing can take them up a level. The way that they’ve played, especially how difficult they’ve made themselves to break down and beat means that they’re going to do a lot better than they did last season.
‘However, they’re going to find it difficult to get ahead of Liverpool and Manchester City. Those two sides do it consistently over the last couple of years, whereas I haven’t seen Chelsea be at that level for a good while.
‘They play Manchester City this Saturday which will be a great game and will give everybody the opportunity to see whether Chelsea are actually good enough to compete with Liverpool and City.’
While the former Liverpool player has doubts over Chelsea, Alan Shearer believes that their early season form means they could be tough to stop this campaign.
‘The Premier League title race is only just getting started, but Chelsea already look like they will be very hard to stop,’ Shearer told BBC Sport.
‘Thomas Tuchel’s side look seriously impressive right now, but they have done since he took charge in January. Even when they are not playing well or things go wrong – like it did when Reece James was sent off at Anfield last month – Chelsea still give very little away.
‘Chelsea’s next test is against Manchester City at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, but that won’t faze them. They beat City three times under Tuchel last season, including in the Champions League final. He will be ready for Pep Guardiola again, I’m sure.’
