Lead trimmed to six points having played a game more. Nervous much?
It turns out reports of the death of football were greatly exaggerated. Manchester City and Liverpool are definitely in a title race.
City’s collapse against Tottenham followed a come-from-behind win over Norwich City for Jurgen Klopp’s men.
Already, a degree of focus is turning towards was could effectively be a winner-takes-all Premier League showdown at the Etihad Stadium on April 9. But that might end up just the tip of the iceberg.
City and Liverpool are both on course for the Champions League quarter-finals and could draw one another. The two legs of those ties would take place on April 5-6 and April 12-13.
An absolute nightmare scenario for keeping any food down at all that week, right? Well, there’s more.
Admittedly, a few more pieces have to fall into place for this one to come to pass, but the Premier League’s top two will be confident of progressing from fifth-round FA Cup ties against Peterborough United and Norwich respectively.
Avoid each other in the quarter-finals and City and Liverpool meet for a semi-final showdown at Wembley on April 16.
As you begin working out how much it’s reasonable to spend on your own personal nuclear bunker, the City Is Ours team have given their thoughts on what such an unprecedented run of fixtures would mean for the two best teams of this era.
Alex Brotherton: Torture for fans
Thought the 2018/19 Premier League title run-in was bad, did you?
City's 2-1 win against Liverpool in January 2019 - which set in motion City's leapfrog of their league-leading rivals - was one of the most stress-inducing City matches of recent times.
Well, imagine that but four times in the space of 12 days. It would be like the football version of the hit Adam Sandler film Uncut Gems, only the kids are crying, the car has broken down, your mates are taking the mickey and your enjoyment of the following summer is hinging on the outcome of 22 men kicking a ball around a rectangle of grass for 360 minutes.
In all-seriousness, City facing Liverpool in three different competitions in the space of 12 days would be fantastic for the neutral but torture for fans. I think City are brilliant just as much as the next guy, but there's something about Liverpool that sets me on edge.
We've been burnt too many times before by their high-octane style in matches far too chaotic for someone who has grown accustomed to calm and controlled Pep-ball.
Should this slate of fixtures come to be then it could be a fortnight talked about for decades, but I will probably watch the majority of it with hands clasped firmly over my eyes.
Dominic Farrell: Drawing positives
When City were 2-1 down to Queens Park Rangers on the final day of the 2011/12 season, I sat in the ground and started calculating how long would be feasible to withdraw from polite society.
I worked predominantly from home in a city centre flat. It’d be easy to go to the shops late and order a few takeaways. I could log off Facebook for a few months until this ultimate humiliation blew over.
Thankfully, Sergio Aguero spared me from this distorted Howard Hughes-style existence but heading for the woods and burying your phone would seem like a sensible course of action for four Liverpool games in 12 days.
Alas, this job means that’s not exactly a viable option. It would be horrible to endure but, guys [in Pep voice], it could be amazing.
In the doomsday scenario mapped out above, the draw for the Champions League quarter-final would be crucial.
Although the abolition of the away-goals rule might have turned this conventional wisdom on its head, playing the second leg at home is generally thought to be an advantage.
But starting off this four-game series at Anfield could get City on the back foot. Alternatively, back-to-back games at the Etihad Stadium, where Klopp has never beaten Guardiola in the Premier League, might leave the Blues with unstoppable momentum.
The memories of those 2018 games still linger for City fans, as Liverpool dealt the champions-elect their first Premier League defeat of the season in January before dumping them out of the Champions League in April.
In eight meetings since then, City have lost once to Liverpool - winning four and drawing three, with one of the latter games ending in a penalty shoot-out win in the 2019 Community Shield.
In the 2-2 draw on Merseyside earlier this season, City were the better side for long periods. Although such a schedule would be physically and emotionally gruelling beyond belief, Guardiola has wrestled the upper hand in the rivalry that will define his time in England.
Pep is also in the remarkable position of having experienced something similar. His Barcelona played Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid four times in 18 days in 2011. Those tempestuous affairs played a part in Madrid lifting the Copa del Rey and Barca walking of with LaLiga and the Champions League.
Guardiola would certainly take a repeat performance. While I would absolutely back his ability to secure just that, I’d also be delighted to hear from anyone who has a remote cottage available on Orkney in early April.
