Gerrard: Reds are a big title chance

Steven Gerrard believes Liverpool's chances of winning a first league title since 1990 are being boosted by the fact favourites Chelsea and Manchester City are continuing to fight on multiple fronts. A tilt at the Premier League trophy had not been part of manager Brendan Rodgers' plan this season and, despite their impressive form, the party line at Anfield has been that they are not getting carried away. That, though, is becoming an increasingly difficult mantra to stick to, with Saturday's 3-0 victory at Southampton seeing them climb above Manchester City and Arsenal into second place. Just four points separate them from leaders Chelsea, and Liverpool's travelling fans chanted 'We're going to win the league' at St Mary's - something Gerrard believes is a realistic goal given their full focus is on the league, unlike their rivals. "Well, I think it's very nice that people are talking about us and we are in the title race - there's no getting away from that," the Reds captain said. "We're in it. "But it's important that we stay calm, keep taking it game by game and try to win as many as we can. "Man City and Chelsea are still the favourites if you like because they've got that experience of going to win it. "But I think they both know, listening to Jose Mourinho and Manuel Pellegrini, that we are a big threat because we've got no Europe and we can be fresh every game. "It does suit us at the moment being underdogs. What suits us as well is that we've got a lot of time to prepare. "We've worked on this formation all week. We chose to play a diamond and I think it shocked Southampton. "We broke, played on the counter-attack superbly well and could have got more goals." Luis Suarez was at the heart of most things going forward, capping his 100th league appearance for Liverpool with a man-of-the-match display. The 27-year-old netted his 24th goal of the season to open the scoring at St Mary's, before providing the assist for Raheem Sterling and earning the penalty from which Gerrard added extra gloss. "I've run out of words to describe him," Gerrard said of Suarez. "We're blessed in this country to have some really top forwards, top, top attacking players. "But for me, without being biased, he's the best. I've said it many times, I look at Messi and Ronaldo and, yeah, they're world-class players. "But outside of that, you've got (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic and Luis Suarez who are pushing those two really close. "Performances like this, where he hasn't scored for four or five games, but he's getting assists, he's causing so much problems. He's relentless. He's a winner, he's a killer and we're lucky to have him." Source: FIFA.com