Liverpool and Manchester City are bringing rhythmic tension to the Premier League

It’s a while since the Premier League has really felt like this, and it might yet lead to the type of twists later this season the competition really sells itself on

Already this weekend there is something of a twist to the Premier League. For the first time since early November, Liverpool will play before Manchester City, changing the dynamics that have governed the top of the table for the last month.

The fact that Jurgen Klopp’s side have always been under such pressure to follow the champions with a win, to keep the gap at just two points, has been one big reason why it has felt they have been just about “hanging on” – despite having already been responsible for the seventh best record after 15 games in English history. It has just added that extra element of urgency to every moment of a match where they are not yet in front.

Instead, away to Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon, Liverpool now have the opportunity to at least temporarily move ahead of City and put the pressure back on them prior to their difficult trip to Chelsea.

The game also holds an extra element for everyone else. A Liverpool win would really set up the Christmas schedule. Anything less and it will feel the beginning of just another procession for Pep Guardiola’s men.

But the apparent inevitability of City’s form doesn't mean this is a proper title race just yet. It is way too early for that. It is merely the preliminary stage that hopefully sets up a proper title race, and what would be the first of its kind in half a decade.

This in itself makes it feel different and more narratively diverse than so many of the past few seasons.

Pep Guardiola's side are continuing to lead the pack this season (AFP/Getty Images)

The very fact we’re at a point where which of the top two plays first becomes relevant is itself refreshing, as a sense of excitement and tension ratchets up.

It is not big-six clashes that now most command the attention, but matches involving the top two. That is the case with Chelsea-City this weekend, a fixture that is now most relevant because of the prospect of a title race developing, because there is a new urgency with it. It is the first time in a while that has been the case.

Proper title races are actually much less frequent than the Premier League marketing would like to make out. There have really only been nine that have had that arresting “now over to you” feeling over a long stretch of the season and right into spring: 1994-95, 1995-96, 1998-99, 2002-03, 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2011-12 and 2013-14.

Only two of those have come in the last decade. Pep Guardiola actually hasn’t been involved in that many more in that same time. His very first season at Barcelona in 2008-09 saw the threat of a title race brutally killed off by a brilliant 6-2 win away to Real Madrid, setting the pace for most of his career.

Of his nine full seasons so far, six have been dominant processions to victory. There have only been two campaigns where he hasn’t won the league, and only one – 2016-17 against Antonio Conte’s Chelsea – where he hasn’t even been in the race. Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid otherwise pipped his Barca in 2011-12, after Manuel Pellegrini’s Madrid had taken them to the last day in 2009-10. They are the only times he will really have felt this tension.

And these are still just exceptions to a general record of excessive points returns, one that really became the pattern at Bayern Munich. That experience, combined with City’s resources, are why it is now impossible not to imagine another 90-plus-point campaign.

And it is that, as well as Klopp’s inability to challenge Guardiola amid similar dynamics with Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga, that keeps most of the pressure on Liverpool.

Perhaps the biggest question in this entire season is not just whether the German’s side can sustain a title challenge, but whether they can rise to the extra challenge of sustaining something close to City’s points return.

This is why it is said they are hanging on by their fingertips, even though so many at Anfield bristle at such descriptions. While City have generally maintained their return with easy wins – six of their 13 have been by three goals or more – Liverpool have more often had to grind theirs out.

Is the nature of so many of Liverpool’s wins merely a reflection that the make-up of the team really isn’t right, that they’ve generally got fortunate and that luck will run out? One player did privately say that, at the very least, they can’t keep relying on “scrappy wins”.

Do Jurgen Klopp's men really have enough to go all the way against City? (Getty Images)

Or, does the nature of their wins actually bolster the belief they can put up a challenge? Winning your derby in the last minute and recovering from a goal down at Burnley to win resoundingly are the type of developments that foster trust, that generate a confidence that then itself starts to infuse performances in a virtuous and – Klopp would hope – victorious cycle.

That is what so many title races have come down to, the mentality and intensity of application in the individual moments that enhances everything else, that adds up to something bigger.

It’s a while since the Premier League has really felt it, and it might yet lead to the type of twists later this season the competition really sells itself on.