Manchester City host Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon in a game that’s being billed as the Premier League title decider.
City were threatening to run away with the league merely a few months ago, but an extraordinary winning run from Jurgen Klopp’s men, coupled with some disappointing results from the reigning champions, has set up a blockbuster finale to the Premier League season.
Merely a single point separates the two sides heading into tomorrow’s fixture, with the victor, should there be one, sitting top of the pile and with the momentum ahead of what will be the final seven games on the calendar.
It has all the makings of a modern classic, with City and Liverpool fiercely contesting for the Premier League title throughout the Guardiola-Klopp era. Some have even suggested that we are witnessing the greatest rivalry in the history of the competition.
Which side of the fence you reside on, whether it be to agree or disagree with that suggestion, likely depends on how you would define rivalry. There is no evident hatred between City and Liverpool, not in the manner that Man United and Arsenal used to detest each other in the early 2000s.
However, there has arguably never been two better teams competing in the Premier League concurrently. Their extraordinary, high-90s points tallies are testament to that fact. Both teams’ accomplishments are absolutely unprecedented.
That’s why tomorrow’s game is so highly-anticipated, to a greater extent than equally decisive fixtures in seasons passed. Man City vs Liverpool is currently the highest-quality football match on the planet, it’s the crème de la crème of the game.
We as a footballing nation ought to consider it of great significance that we have the number one and number two teams in the world competing to win the Premier League. That was never previously the case, we spent years green with envy watching the quality of the title battles in La Liga. No longer.
Sunday’s game will be watched all around the world, à la El Clásico, because a competitively contested game of football, staged by two of the world’s greatest managers and performed by 22 of the world’s finest footballers, is an absolute guarantee.
Who will edge the game is something that only the future could tell us, and there really is no guarantee that it’ll determine the outcome of the title race, with there still being 28 points left to play for after the full-time whistle, but regardless, English football fans ought to savour the moment, because the Premier League is on top of the world right now.
