Over the course of Manchester City and Liverpool's Premier League duopoly over the past five seasons, Pep Guardiola has been only too willing to praise the team standing in his way.
When questioned about the quality of Jurgen Klopp's side - whether that be in the build-up to meetings between the two clubs or during the final, neck-and-neck weeks of the season - the City boss always credits Liverpool with pushing his side all the way and keeping the pressure up, and Klopp for forcing him to evolve as a coach.
Simply put, Guardiola believes that Liverpool are the team that don't allow City to take their foot off the gas and force them to quickly find solutions to problems. That's what happened in both 2018/19 and 2021/22 - City had to quickly arrest slumps in form and dig deep within themselves to find the results that kept Liverpool at bay.
READ MORE: Man City have an obvious solution to move on from Liverpool FC mess
When City don't respond that way then you get a situation akin to the 2019/20 season. City were not good enough or consistent enough to compete with a brilliant Liverpool side. City could not find solutions to their problems quickly enough and so finished the campaign as distant runners-up.
If City's defeat at Anfield on Sunday is anything to go by, then the same could happen this season, albeit in a slightly different way. Should Liverpool win their game in hand then they will still be seven points behind City and 11 adrift of league leaders Arsenal. It would take a gargantuan effort to catch up to both.
But this recent setback could push City and Guardiola to improve by showing the manager what doesn't work.
City have been blowing opponents away this season, but for the trip to Anfield Guardiola decided to switch things up. He opted to deploy three centre-backs to try and guard against Liverpool's tendency to play balls in-behind high-line defences, meaning Joao Cancelo pushed up into wing-back role.
The new system also meant that Phil Foden was more of a left wing-back than a left winger, meaning he wasn't really high enough to bully Liverpool's makeshift right-back James Milner like he did in early 2021, but was deep enough for Harvey Elliot to team up with Milner and limit his advances.
Kevin de Bruyne was forced to play somewhere between the wing and midfield, meaning he didn't find the space others usually create for him.
In short, it didn't really work and City's defenders in particular didn't seem entirely comfortable with the new system. It should be enough to persuade Guardiola to go back to the system he knows works, as was the case when City lost 3-0 at Anfield in the Champions League in 2018.
That evening Guardiola sought to control the middle of the pitch by setting his midfield up in a diamond formation, but Liverpool ended up overrunning City on the counter-attack. The coach promptly ditched the tactic.
The result of Sunday's meeting was never going to decide the destination of this season's Premier League title - it could well end up at the Emirates Stadium - but it has served the purpose, once again, of forcing City to improve. Whenever that happens, whether in a motivational or tactical sense, it can only be a good thing.
READ NEXT:
