AND then, with just five games of the Championship season remaining, there were two.
In a division famed for its unpredictability, the race for automatic promotion has at last been awarded a semblance of clarity.
Either Hull City or Watford will be joining Cardiff City on a direct path towards the Premier League. Even accounting for the Championship's many quirks, it must surely be as simple as that.
After the past weeks have exposed the telling flaws of Leicester City, Middlesbrough, Brighton, Nottingham Forest and, most recently, Crystal Palace, only two of the contenders for second spot are left chasing Cardiff.
One of the hopefuls will see their season finish with champagne corks popping in 25 days time, the other begrudgingly condemned to buy a ticket for the play-off lottery.
For City, the side firmly in the driving seat, the equation is suddenly crystal clear. Take 13 points from their last five games and a return to the top flight is guaranteed. Anything less and the door could yet swing open for third-placed Watford.
A three-point cushion, one feathered by Saturday's 1-0 win over Middlesbrough, leaves the Tigers as the side to catch down the final straight.
Watford could almost reach out and touch second spot following their 1-0 victory at the KC Stadium seven days ago, but a failure to match City's weekend win when held to a 0-0 draw by Cardiff has sent the Hornets almost back to square one. The margin for error is perilous once more at Vicarage Road.
As tradition demands at this time of the year, the details of each side's run-in takes attracts untold attention.
Never before have the fortunes of Watford meant so much to City, nor those of the Tigers to their Hertfordshire rivals.
A handwritten fixture list for all the promotion contenders has been prominent on the office desk of Steve Bruce for the past month and before long, if not already, he will be able to recite the last five challenges facing Watford blindfolded.
For good measure, here they come again. After back-to-back away games at Peterborough and Millwall in the next week, Watford welcome lowly Blackburn to Vicarage Road before travelling to an out-of-sorts Leicester. A season-ending date at home to a lifeless Leeds completes the Hornets' final quintet.
Hardly the most daunting denouement on paper but neither is City's.
An away double-header at Ipswich and Wolves, sides currently 14th and 19th, precede the penultimate home game against a seemingly doomed Bristol City.
A trip to 2013's second best Championship side Barnsley on the last weekend of April is arguably the greatest test before the final day brings a date with league-leaders Cardiff. If promotion has already been celebrated by the Bluebirds in the build-up, it could well be the dream date for Bruce's men.
City will aim for 15 points, of course, but given their three-point advantage at present, a further 10 would place huge demands on a Watford side that has won one of its last five games. A final total of 84 points is likely to prove sufficient.
Watford's hopes of snatching second spot by May 4 are entirely reliant on City stumbling and led manager Gianfranco Zola to deflect pressure away from his side after the weekend stalemate with Cardiff.
"We have no pressure, the pressure is on others," claimed the Italian on a tentative adventure into the world of football's mind games. Zola would dearly like that to be true but Watford's trip to London Road on Saturday will hardly be carefree.
Bruce is another choosing his words carefully as the stakes rise. A swipe at the Hornets' celebrations following their victory at the KC last week were aimed as much at his own players as much as they were at Watford, and Saturday's match-winner Robbie Brady had been listening.
"I don't know why they were jumping and shouting, we were still a point ahead," he said at the weekend. "They have nothing to be cheering about." Quite.
If there is little to split City and Watford (a win apiece this season suggests not) perhaps Bruce is the most important figure of all.
Unlike Zola, the Tigers boss has been here before. Bruce's two previous seasons at this level ended with Birmingham winning promotion and that level of experience is arguably his greatest strength. Zola, as likeable and bright as he might be, is walking into the managerial unknown.
The history of this season is also on City's side. Since the halfway mark of the campaign was reached with a 2-1 win at Derby County on December 21, City have spent 72 of the last 109 days in second position.
Watford, by contrast, have been residents of the top two for just 13 days all season. Leicester, winless in their last eight and languishing harmlessly in seventh, are the only other side to have broken into the automatic promotion places during 2013 back in early February.
None of that will matter if City surrender second spot before May 4.
But as rivals continue to fall in their wake, the Tigers have just one foe left to fend off. Manage that and top-flight football will return to East Yorkshire in August.
