If Liverpool don’t finish the season as Premier League champions, they can consider themselves extremely unfortunate.

Jurgen Klopp’s side have been magnificent this season, losing just one of their 33 games so far.

Manchester City, by comparison, have lost four times this season. However, the fact Pep Guardiola’s side have only drawn twice - compared to Liverpool drawing seven games - means it’s neck-and-neck at the top of the table with just a few weeks of the campaign left to play.

City will be crowned champions if they win all six of the remaining fixtures. But Liverpool, who recorded an impressive 3-1 win away at Southampton on Friday night, will do everything in their power to ensure they finish the season in pole position.

It promises to be the closest and more enthralling title battle we’ve seen for years.

The Reds currently have 82 points and that tally would have been enough to earn them the Premier League trophy in certain seasons.

For example, the 2015-16 season, when Leicester City defied the odds to finish first.

The Foxes sealed 81 points from 38 games that year.

But how about this for a stat…

In the 1998-99 season - the year Manchester United won the treble with arguably their best team ever - Sir Alex Ferguson’s men won the league with just 79 points.

Liverpool, with five games remaining, have already beaten that tally by three points.

You could argue that this merely proves that the Premier League was far more competitive 20 years ago, but it also shows what a season Liverpool are having.

And if they do fail to win the title, it won’t be because they’ve ‘bottled’ it - as many will inevitably claim.

It’ll be because they’ve been unlucky enough to come up against quite possibly the best team in Premier League history in the form of Guardiola’s City.

By the way, Guardiola’s City have *not* earned that particular title just yet.

But if they do successfully retain the title this season - fending off Liverpool, 12 months on from recording a record-breaking 100 points - then it could certainly be argued that they deserve to be described as such.