Manchester City v Liverpool: The strange coincidence and links behind the Premier League title fight

A look at some of the quirks and interesting stories behind the duel between the sides duking it out to be champions in 2018/19

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola lauded Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool for their record run in the Premier League. Reuters

With the Premier League title race likely to go down to the final day after wins for both of the top two last weekend, here's a rough guide to the echoes from the past and strange coincidences that hang around the run-in for table-topping Manchester City and title-hunting Liverpool.

The landlord and his tenant

Two ex-Liverpool managers could have a big impact in the final destination of the title, with one facing City before the end of the season and the other taking on his old employer.

Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers was sacked by Liverpool in October 2015 a little over a year after taking the Anfield side to within a whisker of the 2014 title, only to lose out to City after dropping points in two of their final three games.

Leicester play City on Monday, and the Foxes are third in the form table since Rodgers took over two months ago, behind only the champions and Liverpool.

Earlier this year, Rodgers offered some advice to Jurgen Klopp, his successor at Anfield, suggesting that Liverpool will need cool heads to win the title.

“It’s an incredible club, the support base is amazing, but … the emotion can have an effect,” said Rodgers, who is also, bizarrely, Klopp’s landlord.

The former Borussia Dortmund manager has rented Rodgers’ house since taking succeeding him at Anfield almost four years ago. It’s not often landlords do their tenants a favour, but will Rodgers when Leicester play City on May 6?

That said, it might be wrong to expect too many gifts at St James’ Park two days earlier.

Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez has already said that his team will “try to win the game” when they meet Liverpool on Saturday, dampening expectations that he might help his old club out.

Benitez left Liverpool a year after being pipped to the post by the other Manchester club. United clinched the 2009 title with 90 points, with Liverpool finishing four points further back. Benitez delivered his infamous "facts" speech midway through that season, implying his title rivals had been given an unfair advantage by the Premier League with the way the fixtures had been scheduled.

Liverpool have played before City on more than one occasion in the run-in this term - and they take on Newcastle two days earlier than the defending champions play -  but don't expect a big deal to made of that fact by either manager.

In fact, both Klopp and City counterpart Pep Guardiola are more likely to kill their opponent with kindness.

Last weekend, Guardiola thanked Liverpool for raising the standard of the Premier League. Earlier this season, Klopp called City the best team in the world.

A clutch of anniversaries

Liverpool play Newcastle away and Wolves at home in their final two league games. City meet Leicester at home and Brighton & Hove Albion away in theirs.

City have not beaten Leicester in their two previous meetings this season. Leicester won 2-1 when the teams met in the league in December and the sides drew 1-1 in the League Cup quarter-final, before City prevailed in a shoot-out.

History provides some mixed precedents for both sides.

In 1969, City won the FA Cup after beating Leicester 1-0 at Wembley. Liverpool, meanwhile, finished second in the league 50 years ago. Will the same set of circumstances play out this year?

Five years after that City cup triumph, Liverpool won the 1974 FA Cup with a comprehensive 3-0 win over Newcastle, who are their opponents on Saturday. Coincidentally, the teams line up on the 45th anniversary of the 1974 final, which is surely a good omen for the Reds.

Liverpool then meet Wolves at Anfield on the final day of the season.

In 1976, the two teams also played on the last day of the season, with Liverpool coming from a goal down to win 3-1 and clinch the league title ahead of Queens Park Rangers.

Bob Paisley’s team picked up a European trophy as well that year, winning the Uefa Cup. Few need reminding that Klopp’s men are chasing domestic and European glory this term.

One note of caution. Wolves have already beaten Liverpool once this season, in the FA Cup.

City, meanwhile, beat their own final day opponents, Brighton, in a tense FA Cup semi-final less than a month ago. City also play Watford in the cup final on May 18. It's 35 years since Watford last made the final, when they lost to Everton. Who won the league that year? Liverpool.

Brighton may be still involved in a relegation scrap on the final day of the season and could need points. That set of circumstances almost didn’t end well for City in 2012 when they were hunting down the title and faced relegation-threatened QPR on the final day.

If it goes to the final day, will it go to added time?

City’s three previous Premier League title chases have all had something hanging over them on the last day of the season. This year is likely to be no different.

Last year, Guardiola's men were chasing a record points haul and five years ago, City needed to avoid defeat to pip Liverpool to the post.

In 2012, however, City were watching the title slip from their grasp until Sergio Aguero’s dramatic 94th-minute goal saw his side home against QPR. That added-time turnaround meant City beat neighbours United to the title on goal difference.

TV commentator Martin Tyler famously said after Aguero had scored "I swear you'll never see anything like this ever again", but both City fans and Liverpool supporters may beg to differ.

Raheem Sterling's late disallowed goal in the Champions League quarter-final against Tottenham Hotspur in April was about as dramatic a finish as football gets, albeit in the most negative way for City fans.

Liverpool lost a final-day decider against Arsenal 30 years ago, although it is impossible to discuss that campaign without first referencing the Hillsborough tragedy of April 15, 1989, when 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives at an FA Cup semi-final. Their deaths sparked a decades-long search for justice by their loved ones that still continues to this day.

Top-flight football stopped for a period after the disaster, which led to that final fixture at Anfield between table-topping Liverpool and second-placed Arsenal being played in late May 1989.

The Gunners needed to win by two clear goals to take the title and were one-up going into second-half stoppage time, before Michael Thomas scored with seconds remaining to take the title to North London.

Thirty years on, the late Brian Moore's epic commentary - "It's up for grabs now", he screamed as Thomas slipped the ball into Liverpool's net - is every bit as evocative as Tyler's words were in 2012. You can almost count on this year's tightest of title races going right to the wire in an echo of that late-night drama.

92.30 or 93.20?

There’s also something oddly sequential in the timing of those incidents, suggesting things might go to the wire this time around.

In City's case, the Aguero goal was scored with 93.20 on the clock, while City's hearts were torn apart by VAR this year after 93.30, 68 seconds after Sterling had put the ball into the net.

If you believe in good and bad eventually balancing out, then read on.

The bad for Liverpool happened with 91.22 on the clock in 1989, so if history and mystery align to rub out the pain of missing out on the league 30 years ago and ending the club’s title drought, then 92.30 might be a particularly significant moment this time around. If it happens, you heard it here first.

Two teams on the same track, but will they finish the same?

City’s men’s and women’s teams have had similar campaigns.

Both won a League Cup on penalties on the same weekend in February, both are in their respective cup finals in May - the women's FA Cup final takes place this Saturday, the men's final is two weeks later - and both have had season-long battles for the title.

City WFC lost out in the league to Arsenal, although they could go undefeated through the campaign. Will both City senior sides end up with a cup double and as runners-up in the league? Liverpool would certainly take that set of circumstances.

Results dictate the narrative

If Liverpool win the league, season reviews will point to Jordan Pickford's fumble, Hugo Lloris' spill and Riyad Mahrez's penalty miss, among others, as season defining moments that turned the title in their favour.

If City win the title, you'll hear plenty of talk about one number: 40. That's the total number of millimetres that helped generate a three-point swing in City's favour: the 29mm that Sergio Aguero's shot crept over the line by at Burnley and the Mohamed Salah strike that John Stones blocked with 11mm to spare at the Etihad. If that had gone in, Liverpool could have opened up a 10-point lead at the top of the table in early January.

All of that goes to prove both sides have had some good fortune and a bit of bad luck and that results dictate the narrative not destiny.

And finally …

When Klopp took over at Liverpool in 2015, he said this: "When I sit here in four years, I think we will win one title." Make of that what you will.