Liverpool finish second. Our calculation puts them first.

Manchester City finished the recorded 2013/14 season on 86 points. Liverpool finished two points behind on 84. That remains the official table; City are the recorded champions.

Liverpool had finished seventh the season before. In 2013/14, Brendan Rodgers' side scored 101 league goals, Luis Suárez scored 31 of them, and a team nobody expected to challenge for the title took the race to the final day. They finished two points behind City.

The moments that came to define the collapse remain exactly where they were. Chelsea still win at Anfield. Gerrard still slips. Palace still comes back from 3–0 down. None of those moments needs to be rewritten for the final table to change.

Liverpool beat City 3–2 at Anfield and lost 2–1 at the Etihad. Remove both fixtures and Liverpool lose three points of their own. The twist is that 81 points still leaves them top of the recalculated table.

A year later, the connection between the clubs continued when Raheem Sterling moved from Liverpool to City in a deal worth up to £49m. It doesn't alter the 2013/14 calculation, but it became part of a rivalry that would keep growing.

There is a twist in the calculation. Liverpool took three points from City that season, so removing those fixtures actually reduces their total from 84 to 81. They still finish top.

No extra Liverpool win is required. Chelsea still beat them. Palace still finishes 3–3. Recalculate the table without City and second becomes first.

In our alternative history, that is enough for Steven Gerrard to lift the Premier League trophy. In recorded history, City remain the 2013/14 champions.

The table can tell us where Liverpool finish. It cannot tell us what a title does to everything that follows. Suárez left for Barcelona that summer. Liverpool struggled in 2014/15. Rodgers was dismissed in October 2015 and Klopp arrived days later. Make Rodgers a title winner in 2014 and that sequence becomes much less certain.

The charges were announced on 6 February 2023. What if the case had been resolved sooner?

Premier League seasons have continued while the case has remained unresolved. If a Commission ultimately found breaches and imposed a sporting sanction, could the timing of that decision have mattered to Liverpool?

We call that The Waiting Effect.

What is the smallest hypothetical Manchester City points deduction that would have changed a meaningful sporting outcome for Liverpool?

2014 was not Liverpool's last title race with City. They collected 97 points in 2018/19 and finished one behind City. In 2021/22, 92 points left them one behind again.

Across those three races, the final gaps were two points, one point and one point. But 2013/14 is different: it is the season where this calculation actually changes the champion.

And this is where the counterfactual becomes uncomfortable. Suárez left that summer. Rodgers was dismissed in October 2015. Klopp arrived days later. If Rodgers enters that period as the manager who ended Liverpool's 24-year title wait, does he survive longer? And if he does, is the Liverpool job even available when Klopp is?

Give Liverpool the 2014 title and you might change the route to the manager who delivered the next one.