Once upon a time, a draw at Southamton for a depleted Liverpool side knackered from 120 minutes of an FA Cup final days before would have been considered a good result for a team chasing the title.
Win most of your games, and avoid defeat in those that you can't win has understandably been a successful formula for years. United under Sir Alex Ferguson thrived for a time by focusing on picking up maximum points against the bottom 14 teams and then keeping the rest of their opponents at arm's length, but the strategy was not exclusively theirs; in 24 Premier League years before Pep Guardiola came to England, there were only four champions who claimed the trophy despite not losing the fewest number of games.
Enter the Guardiola era, sparked by Antonio Conte at Chelsea, and if City beat Villa on Sunday then three of the last six years - and half of City's four titles - will have been won in that way. City pipped Liverpool in the 2018/19 campaign despite losing four times as many matches, and this year they have been beaten three times as opposed to Liverpool's two.
