Why Man City and Liverpool are well set to dominate the Premier League for years to come

To put Liverpool’s season into perspective, not even when you try to marry the present with the past, massage the numbers and fiddle the books can you find a runner-up who has amassed anywhere near as many 97 points.

If, for example, you recalculate the 42-game 1970/71 Division One season so that a win equals three points rather than two, as it did that season, then second-placed Leeds United would have finished the campaign with 91. That and Manchester United’s 89-point second-place in 2012 are the next closest.

It is that Leeds United year, incidentally, where, applying the same three-point present-past formula, you can also find the next biggest gap between second and third. Leeds would have finished 20 points in front of Tottenham Hotspur that year.

Top two domination

Liverpool’s stunning, not-quite-good-enough total left Jürgen Klopp’s side 25 points ahead of the chasing pack – more than bottom club Huddersfield accumulated all season.

Following City’s and Liverpool’s lead is the 2011/12 season, when Manchester ruled over the rest of English football with a 19-point difference between second and third. Such great distances at the top are rare, but often tend to ripple into preceding seasons.

City and United shared the top spots for a second successive season then, and when, in 2006/07, United and Chelsea finished 15 points in front of the pack, they were top the next two seasons, and for three of the next five.

But it is uncommon. In the Premier League era, it has been less than eight points in 18 of the 27 Premier League campaigns. Goal difference separated Newcastle, Arsenal and Liverpool – each on 68 points – in 1997. One point separated sides on three occasions, in 2001, 2006 and, more recently, in 2016.

So what of the teams so far behind City and Liverpool, desperate to claw back parity?

Third

Chelsea have a manager, Maurizio Sarri, disliked by the club’s own supporters despite finishing third and having reached two cup finals. They have a transfer ban in place until next summer, unless their appeal is successful and, though they have already agreed to bring in Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund, Eden Hazard has told the club he wants to leave. Sarri admits they cannot catch up if the transfer ban holds.

Fourth

Tottenham Hotspur – while a delightful story of recent years – are clearly too thin in numbers to mount an entire, long, brutal Premier League challenge, unless they receive major investment. Will the sort of money required to compete at the very top – the hundreds of millions Liverpool and City have spent – be available with such a huge debt to pay on their new stadium? A lot, also, hinges on keeping their manager, Mauricio Pochettino, and their star players, which is by no means certain. Pochettino has threatened to walk away from Spurs if they do not invest, as he has every right.

Fifth

Arsenal under Unai Emery feel no closer to digging themselves out of the rut that was dug at the end of Arsène Wenger’s time in charge. Emery says the only way to breach the divide is spending.

Sixth

Manchester United – yikes! They finished 32 points off the top and the last time it was this bad was almost 30 years ago, when they were 31 behind in 1990. Directionless, rudderless, all at sea and nobody seemingly able to steer them to shore. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is already dampening expectations and says it will take a “miracle” to catch up.

What makes City and Liverpool so good

Meanwhile, Manchester City and Liverpool have everything going for them. Two of the most enthusiastic, charismatic managers in the game, who almost every player in the world would want to play for right now.

Young squads with the envy of rivals in most positions. Liverpool’s front three, Sadio Mané, 27, Mohamed Salah, 26, Roberto Firmino, 27, are all at their peak. And Firmino’s place is even threatened by the recent form of 24-year-old Divock Origi. Trent Alexander-Arnold, 20, is arguably the best young full-back in the world. Andy Robertson on the other flank, 25, hardly a grandpa.

At City, Bernardo Silva and Raheem Sterling are both 24. Even the ageing Sergio Aguero has a 22-year-old replacement chomping at the bit for starts, Gabriel Jesus, with 27 caps for Brazil. Kevin de Bruyne – Pep Guardiola’s Lionel Messi – is only 27 and in a central midfield position whose masters tend to mature into old age, like a fine Rioja. Phil Foden is the English teenager everyone would cut limbs off to own.

Never mind the past and the present – the future, for their rivals, is frightening.