I wouldn't be too sad if Liverpool did not get the Champion this season, mainly because the time might not be right.
1. The team is not strong enough yet. Everybody makes (silly) mistakes (e.g. Vincent Kompany), Champions can
(1) Recover from mistakes
(2) Win more than enough games to leave large margin for errors.
The effects of Gerrard's mistake is magnified because of the timing. Earlier season, Liverpool made many defensive mistakes--and lost points because of those, otherwise, Gerrard's mistake would not have seem so critical. LIkewise, in the same game, you can say the forwards made mistakes so the game was not tied. In the past, the forwards made numerous mistakes to leave City with greater goal differences.
2. The team is not mature enough yet. Need to learn how to break the kind of defence (like park the buses) with more ways to attack.
3. The team is not mature enough psychologically. Should not be influenced by JM's psychological tactics.