Millimetres. This is what the title race has come down to and that is how it will stay for these final two games of this unprecedented season, after Sergio Aguero once again stepped up for Manchester City at Burnley in yet another tense, nervy game.
Pep Guardiola says his side have already proven to him that they have the right mentality, the consistency and the concentration to be a top team. In that sense says they have already done their job.
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But if they are to retain the Premier League title they have to go and do the job out on the pitch twice more, after edging out Burnley in a typically ‘Turf Moor kind of game'.
Guardiola, in saying how proud of his team he already is, said that his side had to avoid playing "horrible" in their final three games.
In Lancashire they were not quite horrible for the first half but they were far from their best. The home side played with two up front but their job was not just to take the fight to City but to stop Ilkay Gundogan, the deep-lying playmaker, from getting into the game.
As a result the Blues' game was left for Vincent Kompany, who can count upon many strengths but not intricate passes, to dictate, or the ball was funnelled down the sides. On the left in particular things were not as slick as they should be, with Oleksandr Zinchenko and Leroy Sane failing to link up quickly enough.
Things needed changing at the break, and whatever was said in the dressing room seemed to have an instant effect.
City set about the hosts, who had dropped deeper and allowed more space for Gundogan, and suddenly created more openings than they managed in the entire first half.
They set up camp in the Burnley box and should have had a penalty when Ashley Barnes dropped his arm to block a shot. Tom Heaton had to be on his guard as City fired off shots from all angles, and from not very far out.
Things started to look ominous for the hosts, and all of a sudden City's breakthrough arrived. From another loose ball in the area, Aguero pounced, swivelled and, slightly off-balance, flicked a shot goalwards.
Fortunately for him, and for City, Matt Lowton was off balance too, and his goal line intervention with his chest only span backwards over the line. Goal line technology confirmed it as a goal.
But the technology could not help them soon after, when Gabriel Jesus, who came on for the ineffectual Sane, darted around the back, plucked the ball out of the air, rounded Heaton and fired off a shot that was blocked, unbelievably, right on the goal line by Ben Mee, who had a fine game for the Clarets. Somehow the ball did not go in, City did not have their second.
At that point you were left to think about those millimetres, those fine margins that could cost City or Liverpool the title. Last year City were well clear in the title race when they drew here, but they would have remembered that Burnley clawed back a late equaliser after Raheem Sterling had missed a sitter at the far post. Was that to happen again?
City made sure it did not by playing a more circumspect game. Any loose ball that could have triggered a quick break was instead caressed around the midfield, Guardiola's players taking the sting out of the contest, giving Burnley few opportunities to launch a counter of their own, or a long ball forward.
The threat of a late equaliser always lingered in the air, but in fairness Ederson did not have a save to make. Guardiola threw on John Stones to sit next to Gundogan and win some headers at the back of the midfield. In injury time Nicolas Otamendi replaced Sterling, in case any high balls needed winning in the box.
Usually, however, it was Kompany who won them, the captain showing off all those other strengths that are so valuable. On one occasion he out-stretched a leg an thwarted a through ball that would have given City serious problems had it evaded him. Millimetres.
All those interventions added up to a crucial win, when a win was all that was needed. It should not be forgotten that they came here without Fernandinho or Kevin De Bruyne - when they lost twice over Christmas, they did so without Fernandinho and De Bruyne for the Crystal Palace defeat, and then Fernandinho and David SIlva for the second.
They had looked susceptible in defence and short of ideas in attack at that brief juncture in the season, one that threatened to hand Liverpool the title.
But here we are, with two games to go, and City are top with 92 points. In 17 games since the Boxing Day defeat they have won 16. Their players have stepped up.
On this occasion, as it so often is, it was Aguero who made the telling contribution. In the first half he tried to get City's game going by dropping into midfield, but after the break he was allowed to do what he does best; get in dangerous areas and score goals.
The Argentine has taken his game to a new level under Guardiola and the goals have continued to flow, unaffected by his work outside the box. The winner on Sunday was his 20th of the Premier League season, and he has now reached that mark in five consecutive campaigns.
If City do go on and win this title they will have him to thank, but he will not be alone. City's players are giving their all, and for that reason the fine margins - those goal-line clearances, the penalties not given - are still falling in their favour.
