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• Chelsea and Liverpool can make up ground, says manager
• Fernando Torres set to return for visitors at Stamford Bridge

The Chelsea manager André Villas-Boas has refused to rule Liverpool out of the Premier League title race, despite Sunday’s visitors to Stamford Bridge having slipped 12 points behind the leaders Manchester City.

Three draws in their last three home games have seen Liverpool lose ground at the top of the table yet despite their inconsistent form, Villas-Boas insisted Kenny Dalglish’s side were still title contenders, because of their huge recruitment drive this year. “I’ve always seen them as title contenders because it’s been assumed by them that they would do it,” Villas-Boas said. “Dalglish has made the necessary changes to Liverpool for them to progress to title contenders this year.

“He made seven changes to the team, seven coming in, which represents the type of commitment the ownership have to put them back on title-winning ways. They are one of the biggest clubs in England and I always assumed they were challenging for the title.”

For Villas-Boas to say otherwise would cast doubt on the championship credentials of his own side, who have themselves fallen behind City. Defeat would see Liverpool move level with Chelsea.

If Tottenham Hotspur were to beat Aston Villa on Monday , Chelsea might find themselves outside the top four. That is a scenario the club’s owner Roman Abramovich is unlikely to countenance for too long. The Russian wasted little time getting rid of Luiz Felipe Scolari almost three years ago when he began to fear the club may not qualify for the Champions League.

With the man who came in to save Chelsea’s season then, Guus Hiddink, back on the market, defeat would put pressure on Villas-Boas. But the 34-year-old said losing to Liverpool would not be a disaster, pointing out that Chelsea almost managed to claw back an even greater deficit from February last term.

“Chelsea’s recovery last season was from February onwards,” he said. “April, March and May are still tight in terms of the calendar. All the top teams will most likely be involved in the Champions League, which can dictate tiredness or less response in terms of the Premier League.”

However, with crucial Champions League games and a Carling Cup quarter-final also coming up, Villas-Boas acknowledged the next month is crucial for his side. “It’s a good period for the different competitions,” he said. “You can qualify for the last 16 of the Champions League, the Premier League can maybe start taking its pattern by the end of December. There’s also a quarter-final in the Carling Cup with Liverpool, which gives us a chance to go into that competition next year.”

Sunday’s game will almost certainly feature a recall for Fernando Torres, who started on the bench against Blackburn Rovers before the international break. In that game Daniel Sturridge was deployed as Chelsea’s central striker, despite Villas-Boas having previously declared the 22-year-old would play exclusively as a wide attacker this season.

Sturridge looks set to return to the flank on Sunday providing he shakes off the knock that ruled him out of training on Friday, in a position he also occupied on his England debut against Sweden on Tuesday.

Villas-Boas believes Sturridge’s next challenge is to maintain his club form in order to remain part of Fabio Capello’s plans. He said: “His performances for the club have taken him to England, and to a first appearance, which is something that is gratifying. When someone arrives at that level, you have to prove you can continue to be at that level. That’s the challenge he faces.”

André Villas-BoasChelseaLiverpoolguardian.co.uk

Today’s piffle is checking its own pulse

According to the Daily Mail Pepe Reina has “dropped a shock hint” – perhaps even a shock hint punted gently in his direction during a notably tense Merseyside derby – that he may be leaving Liverpool in the summer. Asked how long he intended to stay at Anfield, Reina replied “at least until the end of the season”, despite the fact he’s on a six-year contract. He also said he wouldn’t go back to Spain. Arsène Wenger is said to be “on red alert”, a condition he presumably conveys by frowning wearily in a long blue padded overcoat and occasionally stroking his chin.

Also in The Mail Blackburn, Liverpool and Tottenham are “monitoring” Stuttgart’s Russian international striker Pavel Pogrebnyak, who is 6ft 2in and has scored five goals in seven games, which is apparently good enough these days.

Arsenal are going to give a trial to the 16-year-old Israeli midfielder Omri Altman, described as “the new Yossi Benayoun”. Altman plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv and has ambitions to be quite good at West Ham for a year or so, spend five years variously injured or on the bench at assorted bigger clubs and grow a slightly lank floppy fringe. Newcastle and Liverpool are also interested.

Saint-Etienne have told Liverpool that their attacking midfielder Dimitri Payet isn’t for sale. Payet, if he were for sale, would cost £7m. And Manchester United have signed the Norway Under-15 international midfielder Mats Moller Daehli, who will now go on to become one of those spiky-haired academy types who turn up in the Carling Cup a few times, go on loan to Burnley, contract a mystery virus, are pictured standing next to Rio Ferdinand in ripped jeans at some godawful city centre Christmas party and then end up occasionally playing for Sunderland.

The Daily Mirror reports the news that Ashley Cole has said he “considered leaving Chelsea” over the summer. “There was a time in my head where I thought I needed to leave England,” Cole said yesterday, raising the notion of a separate and entirely localised time zone within his own head, a kind of Ashley Cole-centred universe that The Mill detects – after extensive gibbering in front of a blackboard in the style employed in American films starring Russell Crowe or some similar great reeking slab of cured ham to denote eccentric genius – indicates either (a) the existence of parallel universes accessed through the use of a “flux capacitor”; or (b) a case of terminal egomania. The Mill isn’t sure which.

Michael Ballack has suggested that Bastian Schweinsteiger should move to Manchester United or Real Madrid in the summer. “He has presence, authority, personality, performance and goals – he has everything,” Ballack sighed, standing alone in the desert on his vast and trunkless legs of stone and watching a 2002 DVD of Michael Ballack: third best player in the world. “Look on my works ye mighty and despair!” he added, inside his head.

Fulham want to sign Luke Young again, perhaps for £2m. Steve Bruce thinks Harry Redknapp will be the next England manager. And Birmingham are still down on their hands and knees clicking their fingers, talking in a high-pitched voice and periodically trying to grab a spitting, clawing Sebastian Larsson roughly round the neck in order to march him inside and make him sign a new contract. Blackburn Rovers are also keen.

Swansea midfielder Mark Gower has signed a new one-year contract. And Edgar Davids has finally taken off his sunglasses and had a really good look at West Norwood and the surrounding areas. “I have decided that my journey as a player at Crystal Palace has come to an end,” he announced yesterday.

Joey Barton reckons Fabio Capello must pick “Wildman Andy Carroll”. “Hopefully they will stop worrying about the Goody Two Shoes image which the sponsors want for England,” baddy two shoes Barton sighed, bundling a whole raft of issues including assault, drunkenness, more assault and other Things That Are Bad (but the mention of which might give the Mill’s top legal team heebie-jeebies) together under the banner of things that boring people avoid doing simply to suck up to sponsors – rather than to avoid breaking the law or ruining other people’s lives or due to some basic sense of right and wrong.

Norwegian goal-giant John Carew will be sold in January after calling Aston Villa manager Gerard Houllier “stupid” for not picking Norwegian goal giant John Carew more often. Houllier has described Carew in return as “paranoid”, a condition of extreme anxiety that often leaves sufferers with wild, googly, unblinking eyes that constantly rotate in their sockets.

LiverpoolStuttgartBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk

There is scepticism about the potential sale to John W Henry, but can he really be worse than Hicks and Gillett?

Here we go again. That was probably the most common reaction from Liverpool Football Club fans waking up to news that a deal had been agreed in principal to sell the club to the 61-year-old American owner of the Boston Red Sox, John W Henry.

“No money for new players… pretty pointless this, to be honest,” said one poster on the Red and White Kop fans’ forum. Another was a little more barbed: “Load of shite. We want Arabs, Russians or Chinese!”

Negative assumptions of Henry’s character are easy to arrive at. He’s American. He has a Dubya smack bang in the middle of his name. One of the photographs doing the rounds at the moment shows him smoking a cigar big enough to choke an elephant and makes him look crass. We hear that he has had a successful sporting interest in baseball and if his takeover does go through his emphasis will be on preserving the club’s heritage and maybe even redeveloping Anfield. We only need to hear the word custodian and we’ll have a full house in Sceptics’ Bingo.

After years of protesting against Tom Hicks’ and George Gillett’s ownership, including the burning of an American flag outside the Kop, it is easy to understand why Liverpool fans aren’t taking to the streets in celebration. In matters of modern-day football club ownership, in which fans have no real influence, all we can do is hope for the best.

Whether the new owners are American, Chinese, Arabic or French, if they do not have any emotional connection to the club, doubts will always persist. And why not? The overriding reasons for foreigners owning Premier League football clubs these days are to do with money or ego. The days of the local businessman buying the club he loves and sacrificing his own money for a stab at glory are over.

The possibility of fans buying a Premier League club between them also seems to have closed. With many supporters already unable to afford tickets for matches, it is unrealistic to expect them to buy into the club they love instead.

Liverpool fans have long insisted that there is no value in the titles that Chelsea have won since Roman Abramovich’s takeover at Stamford Bridge. So perhaps the news that Liverpool’s potential owner is not a playboy from a far-flung emirate or a Russian oligarch should be greeted with a little more enthusiasm than has so far been shown. After all, can he really be any worse than Hicks and Gillett?

LiverpoolGregg Roughleyguardian.co.uk