So, it all comes down to one game. On Sunday May 12, ninety minutes of football will determine whether Manchester City clinch their second consecutive title, or whether Liverpool steal the crown from them at the last moment and become English champions for the first time since 1990.
The race between the two has been closer, and classier, than anyone thought possible. Usually at this stage of the season, nerves have taken over and good football goes out the window as teams in contention for the title scramble desperately for every goal they can get. But although they have shown signs of tension, both Liverpool and City have continued to produce sublime football, and while there have been close title races before, few have been as high quality.
Liverpool have already amassed 94 points and could end the season on 97 points, having lost just once all campaign, yet not win the Premier League. In almost any other year, against any other opponent, they would be champions already, which just underlines the sheer quality of Pep Guardiola’s side. They broke the Premier League points tally record with 100 last season and, if they win their final game on Sunday, they will finish on 98, the second highest tally of all time.
Can Brighton spoil the party? Not according to the odds on Betcris. The Seagulls are a massive 14.7 to win their final game of the season, while Betcris also make City the 1.15 favourites and rate the draw as a big-priced 8.02. That suggests this game is a foregone conclusion.
There certainly appears little for Brighton to play for here. With relegation avoided, they have an outside possibility of finishing 16th rather than 17th, but that hardly compares with the motivation their opponents will have going into this game, and having fought so hard for so long to earn another season in the top flight, it could be hard for the Brighton players to maintain their intensity with the prize having been achieved, no matter how much their home crowd will want them to end on a high.
Their head-to-head record against these opponents doesn’t inspire much confidence either. City have won all three of their league games so far since Brighton returned to the top flight in 2017, and by an aggregate score of 7-1. They also lost 1-0 to City in the FA Cup semi-final last month.
That narrow defeat probably represents a prediction for what we can expect on Sunday. Brighton’s strength is their formidable work-rate backed up by iron-clad organisation. They don’t concede many goals either. Their goals against tally is better than six other teams in the bottom half. And there have been signs that City are finding it harder to find the net under the pressure of the title race. They’ve scored only ten in their last six, compared to a season’s average of 2.46 per game.
And yet, they keep finding ways to score when it matters, as exemplified by Vincent Kompany’s astonishing strike that beat Leicester on Monday. A narrow one goal win may be on the cards again, but given their depth of attacking resource, you have to believe that City will find a way through and end an extraordinary Premier League season as the champions once again.
