The only team to have taken the Premier League trophy away from Manchester City for a while in the last five years are Liverpool. Regardless of the way their season started, City boss Pep Guardiola spoke of the Merseysiders as their main rivals ahead of the match played at Anfield on Sunday, and the game provided the reasons why for those who still weren’t convinced.
Liverpool still a force to be reckoned with
This match always felt likely to be defined by Liverpool and the way they would enter it, for all the quality shown this term by City. The defending champions have been mostly consistent, their attacks sublime and finishing deadly, and had Liverpool entered the contest like they did several times since the start of term, there was a real possibility they would get hammered at their own iconic ground.
-Van Dijk out of form
-Matip and TAA out injured
-Konate a fitness doubtGuess who’s coming to Anfield tomorrow…😳 pic.twitter.com/xK4LjnE2oK
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) October 15, 2022
However, there is a reason why it’s always said that form matters little when it comes to clashes between great teams. It was also said that if Liverpool played the way they’ve shown they can over the last couple of years, City would be in for a tough afternoon, and that’s exactly what happened.
Every player in a Liverpool shirt, from Alisson Becker to Mohamed Salah, played well and contributed to what’s likely to prove an important win over one of the best teams on the planet right now. It was a superb defensive display with a number of high-quality chances at the other end, one of which Salah eventually put into the back of the net in front of the Kop to bring victory to his team.
City drew away to Newcastle and Aston Villa early in the season, but since then, they seemed impossible to stop until they came to Anfield. There is a number of world-class players at Liverpool and though most of them didn’t get off to the best of starts, but world-class players they still are and certainly should be counted on, even when the opponent is Manchester City.
It may prove too late for the Reds to kick-start their efforts in terms of the title race, but there is still a lot to play for and if this moment proves the turning point in their fortunes, the season can still be saved to an extent. Their matches against West Ham on Wednesday and against Nottingham Forest on Saturday will now be attracting plenty of attention.
Haaland silent
This is now the second time Manchester City have tasted defeat in all competitions this term. Both have been the work of Liverpool, and on both occasions, Erling Haaland, the man who has 20 goals in 14 matches of his club, was kept silent.
Of course, Virgil van Dijk being back to his best for this match played a great part in that, as well as Joe Gomez showing he has the quality to face even the best among the strikers, but as Van Dijk himself pointed out ahead of the clash, it was more of a team effort and closing down the creativity of those tasked with creating the chances for the Norwegian sensation was the key.
Time and again De Bruyne was thwarted. His passing accuracy was at 73%, 11 less than, for example, in the 6-3 win over Manchester United two weeks earlier, and it’s worth noting that according to Sofascore, his team had just one great chance all game – a rare low for Pep Guardiola’s side.
Haaland is a great player, arguably the best striker in the world at the moment, but as the recent failure of Norway against Serbia in the UEFA Nations League proves, he cannot bring success on his own. If he gets proper service he delivers goals galore; if not, there’s not much he can do.
Is Mo Salah back?
Mohamed Salah was among the most heavily criticized Liverpool players this term. He was completely marked out of the Arsenal game by Tahekiro Tomiyasu, and it seemed manager Jurgen Klopp withdrew him from the game after 69 minutes due to his inefficiency, which is probably the first since he joined the club in 2017.
Klopp decided to leave the Egyptian on the bench against Rangers in Glasgow earlier in the week, and when he sent him on in the 68th minute, Salah responded by scoring the fastest hat-trick in the history of the Champions League.
Against City on Sunday, the 30-year-old forward got into a number of high-quality chances prompting some last-gasp defending and a brilliant save from Ederson Moraes, before finally slotting past the Brazilian goalkeeper to give his team a morale-boosting victory over the visitors who were heavily tipped to leave Anfield with three points in the bag.
In a time of crisis, teams tend to rely on their biggest stars to carry them through and if Liverpool are going to get back on track, they need Mo Salah back at his best. The last two games have certainly given them hope.
Controversies
Hardly can a top clash in the Premier League go by without heavy controversies, and this one didn’t either.
The problems started in the 53rd minute, when Haaland appeared to have won the ball off Fabinho in the Liverpool half and Bernardo Silva picked it up, involving De Bruyne on his right. The best pass the Belgian playmaker made in the game came at that moment as he slipped the ball through the Liverpool defence for Haaland to latch onto. Alisson came for it and got both hands on the ball at the same moment as Haaland got his foot on it. The ball bounced away and found Phil Foden, who slammed in from close range with Joe Gomez unable to keep it out.
The away end at Anfield erupted in celebration, but their joy turned to bewilderment (for Guardiola to sheer rage) when referee Anthony Taylor went to check the goal out on the VAR monitor. With the situation viewed in slow motion, it was clear that Haaland had pulled Fabinho down from behind by the shirt to win the ball in the first place, and from that point on there was nothing for Taylor to do but to disallow the goal.
“There were a million fouls,” Guardiola said after the game. “But after we scored a goal, he decided it is not play on. This is Anfield.”
The City boss was obviously trying to suggest that the decision was made under pressure from the powerful atmosphere of Liverpool’s iconic stadium, but even he would have to admit upon another viewing that there was no leg for that goal to stand on.
In fact, Guardiola could consider his team lucky given what happened five minutes before the end. Bernardo Silva quite obviously brought Salah down by the shirt, and as Salah protested that the referee chose to ignore the foul, Silva walked a few paces backwards and struck the Liverpool forward, both with a jerk of his leg and a swing of his elbow. The ball had already gone from the spot.
It was a classic example of hitting an opponent without the ball in a most-unsportsmanlike manner, and Silva, who obviously hates Liverpool with a burning passion, should actually thank Salah for refusing to go down in that situation. Had the Egyptian done so, the VAR would be called into action again and there’s very little doubt that City would’ve finished the game with 10 men.
But as it was, the situation prompted an angry overreaction from Klopp, and Taylor had no second thoughts as he rushed over to flash the red card at the Liverpool boss. Klopp himself later admitted it was deserved.
The game soon ended, but this particular problem boiled on a bit as Silva and Salah got into another tussle over it, and not until Van Dijk and Haaland arrived to calm things down would they leave each other alone.
The aftermath
All in all, even though City dominated possession with 64% and took more shots (16 total and six on target, Liverpool 13 total and two on target), it was Liverpool who created more big chances (5-1 according to Sofascore), and given their strong defensive display against one of the best attacking teams on the planet, the Merseysiders deserved their triumph.
As has been said, it’s likely to provide Klopp’s men with a boost in morale, though it’s probably too late for them to re-enter the title race at this point. After all, they have just 13 points from nine matches played, and the gap to Arsenal at the top of the table amounts to 14, even though Liverpool do have a game in hand.
Further more, the match brought a fresh injury worry for Klopp. Diogo Jota was stretchered off the pitch in the final seconds, and the initial reports suggest it could be a lengthy layoff for the Portuguese attacker. With Luis Diaz already out until after the World Cup, another player who can play on the left of the front line is a sore loss at the moment.
Meanwhile, City may be feeling the pain of another Anfield frustration, particularly with Liverpool appearing in such a vulnerable state beforehand, but they’re still in a pretty good situation. The deficit that has them second to Arsenal in the table at the moment has climbed to four points as the Gunners achieved an important victory over Leeds United at Elland Road, but there is a long way to go and Guardiola’s team are still odds-on to defend their title successfully.
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