So that was 2019, and how was it for you?

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For Liverpool it finished in familiar fashion, their 1-0 win over Wolves at Anfield keeping them clear at the top of the Premier League. 

What a year it has been for the Reds. They end it with a swagger, as European Champions and as World Champions. 

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Surely, in 2020, they will become English champions too. 

They certainly ought to. The gap to second-placed Leicester remains at 13 points, with Jurgen Klopp’s men also boasting a game in hand. 

New Year’s Eve is not yet here, but the countdown has already started. Forty-two more points will guarantee Liverpool a first league title since 1990 and they have 19 games in which to get them. 

For context, their last 19 games have brought 55 points; the 19 before that brought 46, and the 19 before that brought 51.

Scary, eh? 

“It is not done,” insisted Klopp after Sunday’s game, a tense, nervy affair dominated, as so many games seem to be right now, by VAR decisions.

“It would be crazy for me to sit here and think it was done. You can ask me if you want, but don’t expect a different answer. It is not done.”

The German’s rhetoric has been consistent, his “only the next game matters” mantra repeated in each and every press conference, and picked up by his players too. “We are positive about the situation we are in,” added Virgil van Dijk, “but we cannot be satisfied – we want more and more.”

Klopp knows, as Van Dijk knows, how quickly things can change in football. Twelve months ago, for example, Liverpool were nine points clear of City at the top of the table – albeit having played a game more. It counted for nothing in the end.

“Who cares about points in December?” Klopp asked. “My team in 2019 was brilliant, but we count seasons, not years.”

Still, it is hard not to reflect on what Liverpool are achieving right now, on the standards they are setting. 

For only the fifth time in their history, they completed a full calendar year unbeaten at home in all competitions, while only one team in English top-flight history – Chelsea in 2005 – has picked up more league points in a single year. Liverpool, remarkably, dropped only 13 of a possible 111 in 2019.

They had their scares, of course. Which side doesn’t? And if they are to lift that Premier League trophy, they may well look back on some of those ground-out wins, those improbable comebacks and those late, late winners and think ‘that was a big one’.

Take Aston Villa away at the start of November. The record books will say it was just another win, a routine three points in a season full of them. 

The reality was very different.

With three minutes remaining, Liverpool trailed at Villa Park. Manchester City had come from behind to lead Southampton at the Etihad, and the news had filtered through. Pep Guardiola’s side would close to within three points if things stayed as they were, and they were due to visit Anfield the following weekend. They would go top if they won there.

It didn’t pan out like that. 

Andy Robertson headed an equaliser and then Sadio Mane, four minutes into added time, headed a winner, sparking delirious scenes in the away end. Liverpool’s lead stayed at six points, and they went on to extend it to nine by beating City. In the space of seven minutes they turned a defeat into a draw, and in the space of eight days, they took complete control of the Premier League.

They haven’t relinquished that control, choosing instead to strengthen their grip as others have stumbled. Since City there have been seven more wins, some of them tight and some of them majestic, but pretty much all of them deserved. “We are a unit,” said Klopp. “We fight until somebody says it is enough points or not.”

They had to fight against Wolves, for sure. Mane’s first-half goal, initially ruled out by referee Anthony Taylor but overturned by the VAR, gave them the points but they needed VAR again to deny Pedro Neto an equaliser before half-time, and had to defend doggedly to preserve a fourth straight league clean sheet. 

“We knew it would be tough,” Klopp said, “so it was no surprise that it was.”

Wolves seethed at the injustice, although the reality was that the right decision was reached on both occasions, however marginal the calls were. Debate the need for VAR generally or the cumbersome way it is implemented, for sure, but don’t complain about the letter of the law being applied. Wolves fell foul of it here, but they will benefit from it at some point in the near future, you can be certain.

As for Liverpool, they roll on. Next up, Sheffield United at home to bring in the New Year.

After a glittering 2019, 2020 looks like it could be equally special for the men in red.