Liverpool’s stand-ins battle back against Southampton to take title race to the wire

• Redmond gives Saints lead against much-changed Liverpool
• Minamino equalises as Liverpool’s class tells
• Matip turns in the winner almost in slow motion
• Reds close to a point behind Man City, each with one match to play

To the final day of the season, and although Liverpool’s chances of winning a 20th league title remain somewhere between a wing and a prayer, there is something about the way in which they keep coming back for more that makes you wonder.

Over to Pep Guardiola and Steven Gerrard now, for the final decisive act of this Premier League season at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday where a win for the home team will deliver the Catalan’s fourth title in five years. But if it should transpire that arguably the greatest player in the history of Liverpool, and famously never a league champion there, can cause a monumental upset, then it would seem that Jurgen Klopp and his players are ready to pounce.

On this occasion it was the understudies who prevailed for the Liverpool manager, with nine changes from the XI that started the FA Cup final on Saturday. Klopp described all this underused talent at his disposal for moments such as these as like having “Ferraris in the garage”.

They play Wolverhampton Wanderers in the penultimate game of their epic season of maximum games and while it is hard to bet against City at home, it is even harder to do so against Liverpool. They are the only side still unbeaten in 2022, across 18 games and on this occasion, as with the previous Tuesday against Gerrard’s Aston Villa, they fell behind. Only to come back again with a long, determined onslaught on the opposition.

There were 14 points between the two sides in January and now at the end of May just the one. Klopp suggested that from now it was a case of what might be won rather than what might be lost. “I don’t feel like we are champions already and from my point of view I think of course City win that game [against Villa],” he said. “That’s football but we have to win our game first. Imagine we go there on Sunday with one ear on Manchester and then it’s [Raul] Jimenez – ‘Bang’ – headed it in. We will be 100 per cent focussed.”

The margins, he said, were small. “If we become champions, it will be deserved,” Klopp said, “but for that we have to win on Sunday.”

Premier League standings (top six only)