Are Manchester City human? Do they doubt? Do they wonder? Is their faith in their own ability as implacable as it often appears? Does there come a point at which they reflect on their own recent form – 12 straight league wins – and then at the league table – Liverpool two points clear having played a game more – and think there is nothing they can do, that a pursuer this dogged, this capable of willing itself to victory in the most unpromising circumstances, can never be shaken off, that there is some other force at work here?
If there is a point, it will have to come at the Etihad against Leicester: even with a relapse into full City-itis, even after a full week watching Jamie Pollock’s own goal against QPR, studying the league table from 1937-38 when City as champions were relegated as the top scorers in the division, and contemplating Steve Lomas mistakenly taking the ball into the corner to run down the clock towards relegation, even to the most neurotic City fan it is impossible to see how Chris Hughton’s Brighton in their current form could loom as a bogeyman who could snatch the title away next Sunday.
Narratives should not matter but even in Pep Guardiola’s icily efficient world, they do. Of course it’s ludicrous to believe that there is some deeper power shaping football, that this is a world of foreshadowing and redemption myths, that certain things are meant to be. But stories are the way we understand the world – and stories are based on the structures, echoes and symbolism that find meaning in happenstance. Destiny is a powerful drive, even for those who do not believe in it.
You don’t have to be some cabbalistic scholar to see significance in the fact that it is Brendan Rodgers, a manager who came so close to winning the league with Liverpool only to lose out to City, who now represents Liverpool’s last realistic chance of overcoming City this season. He didn’t win it then, but could he win it for them now? Might there even be some decisive slip from some long-serving City hero to right the balance? It’s so appropriate, in fact, that were this scripted, we would probably wonder whether it weren’t a little too neat, whether his sudden departure from Celtic, denying himself the opportunity of a treble treble, did not feel a little obvious.
And if you were a City player or fan, and if you allowed your mind to stray beyond the excellence of your own game, you might view the Rodgers factor, allied to the way Liverpool have been playing, with a certain trepidation. Liverpool are on their last legs. They are exhausted. The injuries that characterised the last couple of months of last season have been delayed to the last couple of weeks of this, but they have come.
On Saturday Liverpool were weary and ragged – yet somehow still found a way to win. Guardiola plans and plans and plans some more – and yet the title race is still alive because Fabinho gouged a free-kick from a benevolent linesman with four minutes to go and Divock Origi, three Premier League starts this season, got enough of a touch on Xherdan Shaqiri’s delivery that the ball cannoned in off Jamaal Lascelles.
It was the fifth time this season in the league that Liverpool have turned a draw into a win in the final 10 minutes, the second time Origi has done it and the second time there was a major contributory touch from a defender – even if Lascelles will not be credited with an own goal as Toby Alderweireld was. Add in Daniel Sturridge’s late equaliser at Chelsea and that is 11 points Liverpool have claimed after the 80th minute this season.
City have not claimed any. The latest goal they have scored this season that has changed the result was Leroy Sané’s 72nd-minute winner against Liverpool in January. Their idea of living on the edge is Sergio Agüero’s 63rd-minute winner at Burnley last week. City’s method is to get ahead and then control the game. The chaos and emotion of St James’ Park on Saturday is alien to them.
Guardiola must look on Liverpool with a level of bewilderment. How are they still there? How have they not been finished off yet? In his Apollonian world, it makes no sense – and that, perhaps, is Liverpool’s best chance. What are these late goals for if they not deliver the grand finale? More soberly, Liverpool may reflect that this cannot go on, that if they do not win the title this season they cannot rely on such nerve-shredding force of will next. But that is for later. For now what is important is that they have taken the title race into the final weekend.
Whether that is enough, Rodgers, Leicester and City’s susceptibility to the demands of narrative will determine on Monday night.
