It’s the great complication of the title race. As soon as the prize becomes seriously achievable, it also becomes time to play down expectations.
So it is with Mauricio Pochettino of Tottenham and Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool as another pivotal holiday football weekend approaches.
Do we ever really believe managers when they warn everyone not to get carried away? That it’s only December? That they are just focusing upon their own team and nobody else?
Do we even want to believe them? After all, they look at the same league tables as us and read the same results pages. In the end, those numbers are what the whole shooting match is about. They are the very point of the whole show.
So if you are a Tottenham fan it is impossible not to be excited just now after 11 goals in the last two matches fired them into second place behind Klopp’s leaders.
If you worship at Anfield, why wouldn’t you be starting to get carried away as an unbeaten season rolls on – eight wins from eight is the current run – with only seven league goals conceded all season?
If the battle to the finish does eventually exclude Manchester City and come down to a straight fight between Liverpool and Tottenham, one thing is already clear – it is going to be easier to accept one of the two managers’ pleas for calm above the other’s.
Pochettino is Mr Cool in all this. His expression rarely changes although he occasionally grins. His hair barely moves. He is not often seen yelling from the touchline. He rarely berates referees. He doesn’t make headlines demanding more and more transfer cash.
It means he has not been elevated into the personality cult that surrounds some more demonstrative managers – so the focus is more directly upon his achievements on the pitch, which look more and more impressive with each passing week and have both Manchester United and Real Madrid eyeing him up enviously.
It means, too, that the patient and inspirational work he has done improving and allowing free expression to players like Harry Kane, Delle Ali, Hueng-min Son and Kieran Tripper is among the main topics of the analysis of his style.
Asked about it all, Pochettino usually gives a little smile, shrugs his shoulders and says something sensible and intelligent – which belies the steely, bold and uncompromising attitudes about how football should be played that drive his managerial style.