Title races have many facets. They are about skill and speed, talent and technique, resolve and resilience. Above all, they are a test of temperament.
Liverpool have spent a season confounding expectations. They are doing so by coping with pressure better than the seasoned campaigners of Chelsea and Manchester City. Jose Mourinho and Manuel Pellegrini have sides packed with proven winners. Brendan Rodgers does not. But rather than drawing on their past, Liverpool's players are making history.
They have recorded 11 successive victories, their best run since 1982, to earn a five-point advantage. Luis Suarez has delivered 30 league goals, the most by a Liverpool player since Ian Rush, 27 years ago, to spearhead a challenge built from the front.
Liverpool have scored 96 goals and Raheem Sterling, the teenager who was not born when they were last champions, in 1990, has been brilliant in successive 3-2 triumphs.
Liverpool toy with their supporters’ emotions yet, time and again, have the ability to emerge from action-packed games as winners.
Now they require two more wins, plus a draw. They do not even need to beat Chelsea next Sunday. Their victory over Norwich City also confirmed Uefa Champions League football at Anfield this autumn, but the swiftness of Liverpool's rise is such the achievement of their original season objective went almost unnoticed on Sunday.
While City faltered and Chelsea failed against Sunderland, Liverpool accelerated into a commanding lead. They are unlikely to lose it.
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