Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has conceded that Liverpool's sustained pressure in the title race has come as no surprise.
Pep Guardiola's side were dealt a blow on Saturday evening after losing at home to Tottenham Hotspur, offering Liverpool a reminder that hopes of claiming top spot remain very much alive.
The gap separating the teams now stands at six points, though the Reds can reduce this to three should they win their game in hand on the league leaders when hosting Leeds United on Wednesday evening.
Liverpool and City are no strangers to battling it out for the Premier League crown, however, having gone toe-to-toe with one another in recent years while setting sky-high standards.
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A repeat of the 2018/19 season, which saw the Sky Blues dramatically crowned champions on the final day ahead of Jurgen Klopp's side, could now be on the cards.
Should this be the case, it would come as no surprise to Gundogan.
“It’s not a situation that we’re not used to," he told BBC Match of the Day following Saturday's setback on home soil.
"We know from recent years that Liverpool are always contenders. They’re always up there.
"We know they’ll try everything to make our lives as difficult as possible. The good thing is that they still need to come here to the Etihad, but there are still many games to go.”
Few would have predicted Spurs to end City's 15-game unbeaten run in the top-flight, particularly given their patchy form of late.
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But the Premier League is often home to shock results, which this away victory will certainly fall into the category of.
Guardiola and Co will be eager to issue an immediate response, and Gundogan is adamant this blip can serve as a 'wake-up call' for the team.
"We kind of thought we’d rescued it," admitted the German in relation to Riyad Mahrez's 92nd-minute equaliser.
"If you look at the whole game we deserved to win. But football is sometimes crazy and today we made easy mistakes. We gave them the ball to have possibilities to counter and that made us lose the game.
“They were also ruthless in their finishing up front. We had a lot of chances and the possibility to score a few more goals, but we gave them the chances they had too easily. It didn’t feel like a bad game from us. They defended so, so deep, particularly towards the end of the first half. It’s not so easy.
"Sometimes you have these kind of games and you need to learn from it. It’s a wake-up call for us. There’s still a long way to go."
