...NO, CITY NEED TO BE PRAGMATIC

HOW do you call this one? Liverpool could wallop City and we wouldn’t be surprised. City could win by four or five and we wouldn’t be surprised either! Both teams can demolish anyone on their day. There is still a long way to go so I don’t think this is must-win for City. When I won the Premier League title with Blackburn in 1994-95 we were eight points clear with six games to go but weren’t crowned as champions until the last day of the season. So Liverpool’s seven-point lead is catchable, especially when the team chasing are Pep Guardiola’s City. There will be teams fighting for their lives at the end of the season and Jurgen Klopp could have to contend with injuries. Imagine if they lost Virgil van Dijk or Mohamed Salah? So this title race will not be over, even if Liverpool win tonight. But the pressure is certainly on City more than Liverpool and Guardiola’s approach will be interesting. He set up his team more conservatively than usual in their 0-0 draw at Anfield in October. So will he go all out? I don’t think he will. Why go for broke at this stage of the season? Guardiola does not fear teams but he certainly respects them. He is clever enough to know Liverpool can punish teams that try to pin them back. Klopp’s team love playing on the counter. It is frightening to think that, at their current rate, Liverpool would break City’s 100-point record from last season. I’m not so sure that will happen, as