Before the season started, no one gave attention to Liverpool. Some people were predicting that City will defend the league. While Arsenal fans were saying that, it's their turn to win the league thos season. Unfortunately, for these two teams, they don't have the quality and strength to prove those who made those predictions right. Injury ravaged City, and Arsenal cannot be consistent Liverpool proved everyone wrong.
I would say there is a difference between the two. Expecting Liverpool to do great was something we could have expected because Liverpool is a good team and while they had a new manager it was still true that Liverpool had a good squad and while you may not expect them to win the league you could have expected them to be top four easily, without much trouble, they are that good, their worst expectation should have been top four.
However, nobody expected City to be this bad, that part is true, seeing them anywhere aside from top one or two is a shocker and the way they have done terrible so far in many games is a big deal. The fact that they are still fighting for a top four spot, when they didn't win 2 games for months in a row, is a big deal.