The Liverpool vs Man City Premier League title race is now down to two main factors

There are two main factors driving the run-in, and they are no longer the force of Jurgen Klopp or the sophistication of Pep Guardiola combined with Manchester City’s wealth

As we enter the very back nine of the Premier League title race, there are two main factors driving the run-in, and they are no longer the force of Jurgen Klopp or the sophistication of Pep Guardiola combined with Manchester City’s wealth.

Those are now just the factors that have put this finely-poised situation in place, with the champions one point ahead of Liverpool. What is important next are actually finer points, and specific consequences of all this.

For Liverpool, it is sustainability, and whether they can get close to the points return that really set the tone for this race.

For City, it is persistence, and whether they can break through the massed defences that have now become a distinctive theme of their games.

It is, in that sense, a case of the stuttering force and unmoving objects.

Both are very direct consequences of how these managers actually coach, and the qualities that have got them here in the first place.

That couldn’t be more direct or obvious than in City’s matches against West Ham United and Bournemouth. To encounter just two shots against you, and so little willingness to move out of your own box or even have the ball, in 180 minutes of football just wasn’t normal.

It is however the inevitable response to the intricacy of City’s play and how they can simply overwhelm you and tear you apart.

It is exactly like what happened with Guardiola’s Barcelona - with the blueprint best laid out by Jose Mourinho’s Internazionale - and Spain 2010. Their domination of the ball was so emphatic that teams felt the only response was to deny them space in the area where they most needed to use it. Guardiola has made the City project so good that this is the response.

The wonder now is whether this is going to be the trend for all of their remaining games. If it is, then they could be in for some long and tense afternoons, much like at Bournemouth.

It’s just as well they themselves have amassed so many innovative attackers. So many matches are going to become a test of what they can come up with.

Liverpool face an opposite problem. It isn’t about keeping going, but getting going again. They have a much tighter squad, that really almost performed to the maximum in the first half of the season, as they set a frankly astonishing points return.

There is only one way to stop Guardiola's City (Getty)

It was always unrealistic that would stay at anything close to the same level, but not just because it was so unbelievable as to be unsustainable. There was also something more specific to Liverpool.

Each of Klopp’s seasons at Anfield so far have seen a relatively significant drop-off after December. It slightly varies from season to season, but has generally gone from around 2.1 per game to around 1.7 per game.

The negative for Liverpool is that we know this is a trend, and one that looks likely to be repeated.

The encouragement is that we don’t fully know the reasons for it, or whether they will be as relevant this season.

Liverpool have fallen into second place (AFP/Getty Images)

The strength in depth is one obvious issue, but this is also one season where they have had something like his old Bundesliga mid-season break with that trip to Dubai, and it shouldn’t be forgotten that the early part of the campaign was characterised by a lot of talk of how Liverpool were not pressing as much precisely because Klopp wanted to conserve energy for the run-in.

As pointed might be that, a little like with City, opposition sides have realised the optimum way to set up against Liverpool’s 4-2-3-1. That may have been part of a reason for a change in formation that has fed into this lack of fluency. That can also play into nerves, and make any sense of fatigue feel psychologically weightier than it actually is.

There is then the fact we don’t know whether anything like the same return will be required, because we don’t know how City will respond to what looks a very testing April. If they go as far as expected in both the FA Cup and Champions League, they will have big ties in both competitions combined with successive games against Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United.

And this might be after a series of increasingly exhaustive league fixtures.

The trend of this season up to now has been that these teams were so good that anything less than victory in any individual game was hugely costly.

That might, like the tone of the race, just start to change.

We might see another few drop-offs, that only ratchet up the excitement.