GAME ON. With a relatively vast emotional and fiscal investment in Manchester City finishing top of the pile, circumstances forced me into the highly unusual position of cheering rabidly for Chelsea on that little visit to Anfield.

Indeed, I may have leapt out of my seat and come close to hitting the ceiling at the precise moment when Stevie Gerrard crowned a glorious career by slipping when under next to no danger, and gifting Demba Ba the opportunity of a lifetime to turn the title race on its head for the umpteenth time in a truly crazy season.

In any other circumstances, for the many reasons I outlined last fortnight, it might have seemed faintly obscene to cheer for Abramovich’s vanity project against the ‘Pool, but this was no time for sentiment. On a human level, if Liverpool do end up missing out on a first title in 24 years on goal-difference, it will be undoubtedly tragic for Stevie-G, who thereafter will probably always be remembered chiefly for a banana-skin moment, rather than for all his heroics down the years.

He compounded his error with an OTT second-half display, trying to win it single-handedly, desperately over-compensating for his mistake by launching about a series of wild 30-yard pile-drivers at goal, a few of which must have come close to hitting the corner flag. It was panicky, desperation stuff which played right into Chelsea’s hands, and a very brave manager might have seriously considered taking him off about the hour mark, though this would hardly have gone down well with the Anfield gallery.

City held their nerve to win later on at Palace without undue fuss, an early lead defusing the tension considerably. There are many admirable things about Palace in their new incarnation under Tony Pulis, but they are not a side built to come back from deficits, and there was scarcely a single meaningful assault mounted on Joe Hart’s goal in the entire 90 minutes. Creatively, it was not an impressive display from City, who will need to up the gears considerably on their imminent visit to Everton – but there are days when an ugly win is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Meanwhile back on Merseyside, Brendan Rodgers let his emotions get the better of him after a season of impeccably good behaviour. One of the many impressive features of Rodgers’ season has been his steadfast refusal to partake in the usual managerial bullshit (‘the referee was on their side’, ‘the fixture list conspires against us’ ‘we would have won if we had scored more goals than them’) but he let himself down with his sour-grapes outburst against Mourinho’s tactics. Emotions are obviously heightened at times like these, but surely both teams were perfectly entitled to try to win the match in whatever manner they saw fit, and Sunday’s result was a fair reflection of the action as it unfolded on the field.

While hindsight is obviously priceless, it wasn’t strictly necessary for Liverpool to win Sunday’s match in order to maintain pole position, and a wiser approach on B-Rod’s part might have been to double-bluff Mourinho by playing safety-first rather than falling hook, line and sinker for the rope-a-dope strategy. A goalless, uneventful draw might have seemed inappropriate to the occasion, but it would still have left Liverpool in the driving seat: instead, the manager, the captain and the fans could be accused of getting swept up in the emotion and letting the heart rule the head. It was yet another textbook demonstration of Mourinho’s uncanny flair for staging the smash-and-grab raid away from home against direct rivals, a knack which I suspect may yet see the Blues crown this season with the biggest prize of them all (though, it’s equally plausible that Atletico Madrid may have knocked them out by the time you read this).

We are now into sudden death, with City marginal favourites by virtue of the fact that they control their own destiny: three wins from three will seal the deal. Our final two opponents, Aston Villa and West Ham, cannot be viewed as especially frightening obstacles against a City side whose record on home soil remains stunningly impressive. By contrast, the immediate next assignment, a trek to Everton, now takes on a terrifying new dimension. Though HP’s resident Toffee, controversial rock critic and ’80s AOR aficionado Stuart Clark, does not appear to be visibly overflowing with confidence after a couple of recent setbacks, the Toffees are a bloody good team right now, possibly the finest Goodison vintage since they were winning titles in the ‘80s.

For all City’s virtues and bewitching ease in possession, they can display hints of defensive slackness and are prone to occasional lapses of concentration. The biggest thing in their favour by far is endless patience, an absolute refusal to panic when things aren’t necessarily going in their favour on the scoreboard: you can always rely on Pellegrini’s troops to stay calm and stick to their passing principles. Even if they find themselves in desperate need of a winner deep into stoppage time on the final day, hoof-it-and-hope will not be part of the prescription.

There may still be a twist or three in the tale. Even if points are dropped at Goodison, you wouldn’t stake your life savings on Liverpool doing the business at Palace, with the Reds’ sky-high morale presumably having been punctured to a pretty massive extent by the sheer enormity of what happened to them at the weekend. It is even just about plausible, though unlikely, that Chelsea will pass the finishing post in front. It has been another truly wondrous season, whatever happens, and we’ve got a World Cup to sink our teeth into in about five weeks’ time. All together now: we love you football, we do.