Liverpool boss Arne Slot has rejected comparisons between the pressure of this season's title race and the Reds' victorious 2019/20 Premier League win.
Slot has led his side seven points clear at the top of the table in his first season at the helm with 13 games to go and will extend that lead to double figures if they can beat Aston Villa at Villa Park on Wednesday.
The Reds' form has been impressive, with a Carabao Cup final appearance to come next month and Liverpool also topping the Champions League group phase.
But it still does not quite reach the heights of the 2019/20 season, where they had dropped only two points all season at this stage.
That gave them a 25-point advantage over their nearest challengers, Manchester City, and despite going on to lose three of their final 11 games, Jurgen Klopp's side lifted the trophy by 18 points.
Several first-team regulars, including Alisson, Virgil van Dijk, Andrew Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah remain at Anfield from that victorious season.
But speaking ahead of Wednesday's trip to Villa Park, Slot said the advantage of such a huge lead, far bigger than any Liverpool have come close to this season, meant it was difficult to compare the pressure Klopp's side faced with a tighter title race this time around - particularly as supporters were largely not permitted into stadiums once the season resumed during the Covid pandemic.
"It helps if a player or a team already won something but I don't make that too big because you still have to play for it. You can't compare circumstances," Slot said.
"The ones who won the league in corona time, without our fans in the stadium, they were 25 points ahead. So you can hardly talk about pressure then.
"That said, the kind of manager I am, if I was 10 games off and 25 points ahead, I'd still feel we had to win two!
"But we do lean on the players. They have to show up, put in the performances, but not in the manner of today or tomorrow that they have to present a meeting on how to deal with pressure or anything like that. That's not how it works.
"We try to prepare them, I give them a pre-match meeting, but from that moment onwards you lean on them.
"It's about how much work they want to put in, how well they execute the game plan and do they adapt to what the other team does?"
Slot was questioned whether the Reds' narrow win over lowly Wolves on Saturday had been down to nerves, after giving away a late equaliser against Everton last week and exiting the FA Cup to Plymouth Argyle earlier this month.
Van Dijk has already come out this week to say the club must "buckle up and enjoy the ride" of the title run-in and said it would be a "difficult couple of months" if his team-mates were not ready.
But his manager refuted any questions about the squad's mental state and pointed to other leagues around the world - including the performance of his Feyenoord side en route to the Eredivisie title in 2022/23 - for other examples of small margins of victory at this stage of the season.
"We've played more games home and away where it was tight by the end," he said.
"I remember Crystal Palace away, where we needed a big save to secure the win. We didn't need that against Wolves but if it happens towards the end of the season you guys are going to talk about nerves.
"But to secure a win in the Premier League if you are only leading by one goal is always going to be a lot of defending and hard work.
"It tells you what I've said so many times. In the end phase of the season, a lot of games are really tight. Not only ours. Yesterday, Barcelona were close to conceding an equaliser against Rayo [Vallecano].
"Results like this are quite common, like in our title-winning season with Feyenoord. It tells you that you have a team who fights to the end."
'Liverpool are best in Europe'
Liverpool visit Villa Park still unbeaten away from home in the Premier League this season and Aston Villa boss Unai Emery knows how tough it will be against the leaders.
"This is the most difficult match we're going to play in the last weeks or months of the season," said Emery. "Liverpool are the best team in the Premier League and Europe.
"Our challenge is how we face them and respond with our qualities and how we play at this level."
Villa are in the midst of five games in 14 days ahead of facing Chelsea on Saturday night, live on Sky Sports, Crystal Palace next Tuesday and Cardiff in the FA Cup on February 28 before heading into the Champions League the following week.
Emery has a host of injury problems to contend with, but he says it is par for the course when a team is competing on three fronts.
"We are going to prepare each match with good food, good rest, sleep well and play each match with the players who feel as little as possible in everything," the Spaniard said.
"I have to be demanding in myself to use and choose the players for each match to get our structure strong and try to protect some players in case they have a small pain or are getting tired.
"We will play tomorrow and focus on that, hopefully we can play with full energy and 100 per cent. Liverpool played on Sunday and have been playing lots of matches for a long time.
"We have to understand our next step playing a lot of matches in a row, we have to be intelligent, choosing the best moment for the players and get important players off the bench because we will need players trying to help us and tomorrow is the same."
Villa's injury problems include Pau Torres, Ezri Konsa, Matty Cash, Ross Barkley, Amadou Onana, Leon Bailey and Boubacar Kamara.
"Kamara is out and Bailey is close to being with us again, I don't know tomorrow, he's a doubt," said Emery.
"Matty Cash and (Ezri) Konsa are close to being with us. Tomorrow morning I will decide which players are ready."
