Manchester City's defeat at Tottenham simplifies Liverpool's title equation: win all of their remaining games and they will be Premier League champions.
However unlikely it is that they will not drop a single point until the end of the season, as Pep Guardiola has warned they have had longer winning runs in the competition in recent years and can do it again.
One fixture that stands out in particular as being harder in practice than principle though is the trip to the Etihad in the first full week of April. While Liverpool fans can allow themselves to enjoy the feeling of being back in the title race (the team should never have felt like they were out of it), a short trip down the M62 has rarely been happy for them in recent memory.
Guardiola is in fact undefeated against Jurgen Klopp in league games at the Etihad, with 1-1 draws in 2017 and 2021 bookending three thumping victories for the Blues that included two thrashings and the 2-1 thriller at the beginning of January 2019 that inflicted the only defeat of the season on Liverpool and ultimately cost them the title, an unbeaten year, and 100 points.
The Merseyside club did come away with a 2-1 victory in 2018 in the Champions League to cement City's exit, but that came with an incredible slice of luck.
Gabriel Jesus's second-minute goal had eaten into the first-leg 3-0 deficit and Leroy Sane scored just before half-time to further rattle Liverpool, only for the strike to be inexplicably ruled out for offside despite the fact that James Milner had played the ball through to him; Guardiola was so incensed he was sent to the stands, and a deflated City gave up the game and the tie in the second half.
On top of their record under Guardiola, City's post-takeover record at the Etihad is also more than decent; they have lost just two of their 13 most recent meetings - in 2008 and 2015 - and won more than half of them.
That is almost as strong as Liverpool's hold over the Blues in the reverse fixtures in that time, with the same number of wins and just one fewer defeat.
City fans speak of their Anfield hoodoo with trepidation for good reason as their bad run there goes much further back than the takeover, but for more than a decade Liverpool have been just as bad in Manchester as the Blues have been in Liverpool.
If Liverpool are to come from behind to seal the title from Guardiola's side, it will more than likely require a shock at the Etihad that they simply haven't been able to produce in years.
