After Tuesday at Anfield and Wednesday in Amsterdam, perhaps nothing will ever seem impossible again. Nonetheless, it remains extremely unlikely that Brighton – two wins in their past 17 games – will take the points off Manchester City – 13 wins in a row – a result Liverpool need if they are to have a chance of winning the Premier League title. If City win and Liverpool beat Wolves, Jürgen Klopp’s side will have accumulated 97 points this season and still not be champions.

That is a remarkable tally. Only one side in the history of the English league have accumulated more – and that was City last season. If City beat Brighton, they will have dropped only three points in the second half of the campaign to reach 98 points, two shy of the record they set last season. Over the course of two seasons, Pep Guardiola’s side would have garnered a total of 198, and lost a mere six times.

To put in context how freakish that is, think back to the fabled ITV Calendar interview with Brian Clough and Don Revie in 1974. When Clough speaks of wanting to win the league better than Revie had, Revie is incredulous: “We only lost four times!” he says, as though the notion of losing just three is preposterous. Yet City would have averaged that over two campaigns.

In one way, it can be all a little depressing. The Premier League is more stratified than it has ever been. Huddersfield’s draw against Manchester United last Sunday was the first point any of the relegated sides had taken against any of the top six clubs. For a title challenger, there is next to no margin for error.

Manchester United dropped points at Huddersfield last weekend, becoming the first big six team to do so against a relegated side this season. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

If City win at Brighton on Sunday, they will have won 14 league matches in a row. Their relentlessness has become normalised. They are expected to win pretty much every game, yet 14 straight wins would have been a league record, had City not broken it with 18 last season.

In roughly one in six games now, one team dominate with 70% possession. The gulf in resources between top and bottom has damaged the base competitiveness of the Premier League.

Liverpool’s investment at least is on a scale and from a source that is comprehensible. City have the financial power of a state behind them, an advantage financial fair play regulations seem unable to keep in check.

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Yet money alone is not enough – as the other four members of the big six have proved this season. Wealth makes the sort of supremacy enacted by City and Liverpool possible but plenty of sides, as the shambolic squads at Manchester United and Chelsea make clear this season, have money and spend it badly. The remorselessness of the duel between City and Liverpool – neither have dropped a point since the Reds drew at Everton on 3 March – might not have produced quite the drama a more chaotic title race would have but it has been undeniably compelling.

Unease about City’s investment – both its scale and its origin – is understandable and widespread but it has been well directed. They were mocked when speaking, as Roberto Mancini was bundled out of the door, of the need for a “holistic” approach but this success is the result. Everything at the Etihad points in the same direction. Long before Guardiola arrived in Manchester, City had been prepared for him.

Perhaps they were fortunate to have been outbid by their neighbours for Alexis Sánchez and Fred, or perhaps both players would have thrived at City, but it is striking how long it is since City signed a dud player.

Even when they wobbled in December, it took stunning goals from Crystal Palace’s Andros Townsend and Ricardo Pereira of Leicester to beat them. No side has outplayed City this season. Rather their method has been control, taking the lead early in the majority of games and then dictating terms. So good have they been that City’s superiority has felt at times a little bloodless but that in itself is vindication of their effectiveness.

Manchester City suffered a rare defeat in December after Andros Townsend’s sensational goal for Crystal Palace. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Liverpool’s progress has been of a different kind: their greatest strength has been their Whac‑A‑Mole quality, forever popping up with a goal from unexpected sources just when they seemed beaten down: five winners, plus an equaliser after the 80th minute, is a remarkable record. Relying on force of will to prosper in chaos should not be any way to maintain a title challenge – and yet it seems to be working for Klopp’s side.

Liverpool will think back to January’s game at the Etihad, and specifically the way Sadio Mané’s effort, after striking the post and bobbling about between John Stones and Ederson, was 11.7mm from crossing the line, while Leroy Sané hit the frame of the same goal and saw his shot cannon in. Those margins could cost them not only the title but also an unbeaten campaign and the Premier League’s second 100-point season.

Whatever financial advantages Liverpool may have over much of the rest of the league – but not over City – that is an extraordinary consistency. Ninety-seven points is a phenomenal achievement, so great you wonder what the psychological cost might be if even that is not enough to end their 29-year title drought.

Yet every time Liverpool seem to have reached their limit this season, they have found another level. And that, perhaps, remains their greatest hope, that somehow, at the very last, the thought of them in relentless pursuit will somehow cause even this implacable City to wobble.