Manchester City on the verge of winning the title while an epic race reaches its peak

LONDON: After absorbing everything Liverpool could throw at them in a titanic battle for the title, Manchester City will retain its crown with a win in Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday.

It is possible that they are coping with a draw or even an unlikely defeat as they will start their last game with a point in advance, but the Pep Guardiola team knows better than they do. wait for gifts from Merseyside.

In all likelihood, City will win a 14th consecutive victory in the Premier League and Liverpool will beat the Wolverhampton Wanderers for a 1-2 finish. City will take the honors with 98 points against 97 in Liverpool.

To put this in perspective, these totals would be the second and third highest in the history of the Premier League – behind City's only record, which counts 100 points, last season when Guardiola clinched his first title.

If there ever was a case to share the trophy it is this season, such has been the excellence of both clubs.

Juergen Klopp's team in Liverpool were 25 points behind City last year, but took up the challenge and made up for it by playing football, even surpassing the dazzling standards of Guardiola's side. .

Liverpool lost just once to City's four defeats and was briefly seven points ahead in January, but during the break-in, he found that, in addition to the style that characterizes Guardiola's plan, his team also has a core. steel.

This was manifested perfectly on Monday when, with Leicester City at the Etihad Stadium stadium, the captain of the wonder, Vincent Kompany, signaled to a 30-meter crier to send his team in the last day with his destiny in his hands.

It was their third 1-0 win in four games and, let's say what you like about Liverpool's armored defense, City have conceded only three times in their last 13 games, becoming the first club to retain the title Premier League. since Manchester United 10 years ago.

Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson admitted that his team needed a "miracle" to win the title, but in a week in which it beat Barcelona 4-0, capping a three-goal deficit. goals to reach the final of the Champions League C is a folly to reject the idea that he raises the trophy to end the 29-year-old Liverpool waiting since the last reign supreme.

"City is an excellent team, but so are we, we competed until the end," Henderson said.

"Whoever gets it will deserve it, from our point of view, we would not have been able to do it."

It is only the eighth time in the era of the Premier League that the title is awarded on the last day.

What is unusual is the only problem at stake in a realistic way.

Huddersfield Town, Fulham and Cardiff City have already been relegated while Chelsea is certain to finish in the top four and Tottenham Hotspur can not be denied by an unlikely scenario in which she loses against Everton at home and Arsenal wins at Burnley . -objective lower difference.

Even the "best of the rest" question is resolved, with the Wolves guaranteed to be seventh in their first season in the high end.

So there will be no distraction because the most exciting title race in Europe for several years runs simultaneously on the south coast and in Merseyside.

(Martyn Herman report, edited by Toby Davis)