RATTLED, THEN RIPPED APART
Pep is a beaten man as stunning three -goal burst from Liverpool leaves City...
THE best team won. Not the best team in England, because a glance at the league table suggests that has not changed, but certainly the best team on the day.
Ignore the closeness of the scoreline. Liverpool were 4-1 up going into the 84th minute, and were not flattered in the least by that margin. They took the game to Manchester City, rattled and hassled them like no other Premier League team this season. And in a period of eight minutes in the second half, they took Pep Guardiola’s methodology apart.
Will he change? Of course not. This is City’s first defeat of the domestic campaign. Why should he? Yet there will be no invincible season and, eight months from now, maybe more managers will set up to try to City-proof their tactics. One problem. Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool are the best at this. The high press. Denying defenders the time or comfort of playing out from the back. The urgency of their transition play.
Remember Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester at their peak? There is no higher compliment than to say Liverpool reminded of that, but perhaps with greater finesse. ‘Pressing from another planet,’ Klopp called it, and he was right. Liverpool were superb, restricting City to four shots on target.
Without doubt, this was a hugely positive afternoon for Liverpool. Between the 60th and 68th minutes, City were dismantled. Liverpool scored three goals and hit a post through Sadio Mane.
It was an outstanding period of sustained pressure and focus, not least because City had started the half well, and had hit the bar through a header by Nicolas Otamendi. Had that gone in, maybe the outcome would have been different. Yet City did not catch the break and what happened next will resonate throughout football even if, by May, it may seem of little consequence.
Liverpool scored and scored and scored again. In doing so, they inflicted more damage on City and Guardiola than the rest of their rivals put together this season.
It is no exaggeration to say they showed the rest of the league how to do it. Manchester United, Chelsea, all those teams who have been made to look second best by City should be a little red-faced this morning. Why couldn’t they do this, even a semblance of it?
By the end, players who had previously conceded just five goals away from home in the league were made to look skittish and physically soft. Frailties surfaced and were exploited beautifully. John Stones, Otamendi, Ederson, the trio key to City’s defensive resur-
gence were bullied and harassed into mistakes. It was a stunning display by Klopp’s team.
‘We’ve won it five times,’ the locals like to sing of their European triumphs — and that is coincidentally the number of times Klopp has now defeated Guardiola. But few other victories will give him the pleasure of this. This was the epitome of his performance aims.
So, those three goals. The first came on the hour. Oxlade-Chamberlain played the ball through to Roberto Firmino and he outmuscled Stones on the run, before lifting a fabulous finish past Ederson and in, one bounce, off the far post.
Within two minutes, the lead increased. Otamendi was caught in possession by Salah just outside the area, the ball fed square to Mane. He sized up the target and hit a fabulous shot which defeated Ederson at his near post. Surely it could not get better than this? It could.
Salah overhit a through pass which Ederson collected, but instead of dispatching it with his usual calm, by now City’s back line were frazzled and he delivered it directly back to the sender. Salah, seeing the goalkeeper stranded, knew he had a chance to win the game and took it, lifting the ball over Ederson’s head into the empty net. Anfield went into rapture.
Was that it? With Liverpool, it rarely is. So Bernardo Silva pulled one back for City with six minutes remaining and then Ilkay Gundogan made it 4-3 in added time to conjure fears of a famous comeback. It was not enough. When Andre Marriner blew the final whistle moments after, it was Klopp’s turn to join the supporters in an ecstatic state.
Oxlade-Chamberlain was a controversial selection by Klopp, not because he has not been in good nick lately, but because this relegated Adam Lallana to the bench, so soon after a handy display against Everton in the FA Cup. Klopp’s call was vindicated, however, after nine minutes when Oxlade-Chamberlain drove past Fernandinho and unleashed a low shot from 25 yards that flew in at the far post.
The lead did not make it to half-time, of course, but when City equalised after 41 minutes it was about as near to ‘against the run of play’ as any City goal has been this season. Raheem Sterling fed the ball to Kyle Walker who hit a lovely crossfield pass from the right-back position. It found Sane perfectly and he did the rest, cutting inside a bamboozled Joe Gomez and then Dejan Lovren before finishing smartly past Loris Karius.
At that point, it looked as if City might prove invincible after all. Not any more.