Manchester City go to Anfield on Sunday 11 October, and the Liverpool vs Manchester City odds will be settled inside 90 minutes. Twice these two have gone the full 38 games and finished a single point apart, in 2018-19 and again in 2021-22. Only one of those seasons left a runner-up on 97 points. Seven years on, 2018-19 still reads less like a title race than an endurance test.
97 points and nothing to show for it
Liverpool lost one league game all season. They won 30, drew seven, scored 89 goals and conceded 22, and finished on 97 points. No side in English top-flight history has ever finished on more without winning the title.
City finished on 98. Their record was 32 wins, two draws and four defeats, with 95 goals scored and 23 conceded. Nine months of football separated the two by a single point and five goals of difference.
Liverpool also had the division's top scorers and its best goalkeeper. Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane shared the Golden Boot with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on 22 goals each, and Alisson took the Golden Glove with 21 clean sheets. None of it mattered.
11 millimetres
The moment everything turned on came at the Etihad on 3 January 2019. Mane hit the post, John Stones sliced the rebound against his own goalkeeper Ederson, and the ball rolled back towards an open net. Stones recovered to hook it clear. Goal-line technology put it 11.7mm short of crossing.
City won 2-1 that night, through Sergio Aguero on 40 minutes and Leroy Sane on 72, with Roberto Firmino replying on 64. Liverpool's lead at the top was cut from seven points to four, and that was the only league match Jurgen Klopp's side lost all season.
The run-in where nobody blinked
City then lost 2-1 at Newcastle on 29 January and fell behind again. What followed decided the title. They won all 14 of their remaining league fixtures. Liverpool won their last nine, and it made no difference.
Vincent Kompany's goal against Leicester on 6 May is the one City supporters still replay. With the game goalless and teammates shouting at him not to shoot, the 33-year-old defender struck one from 30 yards into the top corner on 70 minutes. It was his first City goal from outside the box, and the 1-0 win left them one result from the trophy.
The final day
Sadio Mane put Liverpool ahead at Anfield on 17 minutes and, as things stood, they were champions. Glenn Murray headed Brighton in front on 27, and City were behind for 83 seconds before Aguero levelled. Aymeric Laporte's header on 38 ended it.
City became the first club to retain the Premier League since Manchester United in 2009, and the first English men's side to win all three domestic trophies in one season.
What it left behind
Liverpool had their answer three weeks later, beating Tottenham 2-0 in Madrid on 1 June to win a sixth European Cup. The season after that, they won the league with 99 points and an 18-point margin.
That is what makes 2018-19 the benchmark. Two teams played 76 league games between them and lost five, four of those City's. A 97-point runner-up is still the outlier in Premier League history, and it is why betting sites still treat this fixture as the one that shapes a season.