Manchester City managed to hold onto Liverpool’s coat tails again with a comfortable 0-3 win away from home to Huddersfield Town today. But playing catch-up could hamper their chances of retaining the Premier League title.
At the moment it seems that no matter what, Liverpool somehow find a way to win forcing Manchester City to respond each time just to keep them within touching distance.
And this situation leaves Liverpool in the driving seat and makes City’s attempts to hold onto their title increasingly challenging.
It’s one of those age-old debates in football; is it better to have points on the board or games in hand. And while Manchester City might not be in the situation where they have games in hand on the Reds yet, they have effectively been playing often as if they have.
For the past couple of weeks since they played each other at the Etihad, Liverpool have had the advantage of playing before their rivals and they’ve kept winning putting relentless pressure on the champions.
In addition Manchester City are still in four competitions while Liverpool are only playing in two, the Premier League and Champions League. That means that assuming City reach the League Cup final, (a certainty surely!), and make progress in both the FA Cup and Champions League, they will start to build up those games in hand.
All this puts Liverpool in the driving seat for the Premier League title. I think that in these situations you would always want the points rather than additional games in hand as regardless of how well your playing you just never know for sure that you can keep winning.
And so it might. It was Manchester City who buckled during that time losing back-to-back games, first very unexpectedly at home to Crystal Palace and then away at Leicester City in the space of four crazy days.
Although Liverpool did lose that match against City, they have the ominous look of a team that might not drop any more points this season. All the omens seem to be in their favour, including the Christmas/New Year fixtures that gave Liverpool the most time off between games.
Given all that Manchester City simply cannot afford any more slip-ups. While at the same time have to hope the Merseysiders lose at least once more to give them any chance of retaining their Premier League crown.
And at the moment that looks a tall order as Liverpool continue to build what is looking like an increasingly decisive title momentum.