Manchester City escaped from Anfield with a point after a second-half hiding which saw Luis Diaz shine but ultimately cost Liverpool the win. This title race is going to the wire.
1) One point clear in the Premier League ahead of Arsenal’s late win over Brentford, having made doubters look daft through a midfield rebuild that’s required no bedding in time whatsoever, further motivated by Jurgen Klopp’s imminent departure and – infuriating though this may be for the rest of us – a seemingly genuine belief that This Means More, the Liverpool vibes may never have been better ahead of the visit of Manchester City at Anfield. They were going to take some stopping, and did.
Liverpool had lost only one of their past 20 meetings with Manchester City at Anfield (W13 D6), and though their 1-0 win in this fixture last season was their only victory in the last eight games against Pep Guardiola’s side, only two of their previous 30 Premier League encounters has been won by the away side.
Both form and feels pointed only to a win for Liverpool, who have been just about the only side to consistently go at Guardiola’s City and have reaped the rewards. Klopp’s Liverpool have won eight games to the six of Pep’s City. Antonio Conte is the only other manager to have faced a Guardiola team more than five times and come out on top (he won four of their seven meetings).
Liverpool again went for City, to the point in the second half where the reigning Treble winners looked almost entirely rattled and needed defensive reinforcements to see out the game. Out-run, out-fought and out-gunned, make no mistake, this was a point won for City and thus two points lost for Liverpool.
2) The significant added layer to this Title Decider was that it was the last meeting between Klopp and Guardiola in the Premier League (assuming the former doesn’t renege on his promise to Liverpool fans), quite possibly the last in English football (though an FA Cup final meeting would be a fitting end), and maybe even the last time they’ll ever meet (though we very much doubt Klopp will make for a good retiree).
Theirs is the only meeting between two English top-flight managers who have won all four major trophies, with their 21 clashes across all competition yielding 3.2 goals per game, well above the average goals-per-game rate in the Premier League in that time.
There were a couple of wonderful 2-2s as they went head-to-head for the title in 2021-22, and scores besides of 5-0, 4-3, 4-0, 1-4, 3-2 and 2-3. Neither Liverpool nor Manchester City would have been as good without the other, and the Premier League would have suffered hugely without them pushing each other to reach new heights. Liverpool finishing with the third-highest points tally ever in 2018/19 and coming second is the greatest example of the mutualism on show again this season, and in this game.
3) Tiki-taka vs Gegenpress when they arrived in the Premier League, Klopp and Guardiola have evolved towards a tactical middle ground in an era defined by absorbing tactical battles and the respect they have for each other, with mind-games – in general – taking a backseat.
But at a point when we might have expected the backslapping and fawning to become unbearable, the pre-match hype instead descended into a war of words typical of the generation before them.
Klopp agreed with Trent Alexander-Arnold’s claim that This Means More to Liverpool and Guardiola reckons Klopp leaving won’t make a difference, and is pretty clearly more impressed by the challenge of former student Mikel Arteta.
Asked if it will be easier to face post-Klopp Liverpool next season, Guardiola said: “I would like to know, but I don’t think so. Liverpool have always been Liverpool and the contenders are there. Liverpool need 90 minutes to win the game, sometimes more. Arsenal sometimes need just 25 minutes to win the games.”
Plenty has been made of Klopp’s claim that his players and fans have something of a monopoly on trophy joy, but Guardiola’s comments are if anything more absurd. To suggest, after all the meetings he’s had with Klopp, who once again won the tactical battle on Sunday, that “Liverpool have always been Liverpool” is plainly nonsense.
Xabi Alonso, or whoever else, might be as good, they might be better, but probably they’ll be worse, and will have to do something extraordinary to build the same relationship Klopp has with his players, the fans and the city. Make no mistake, Guardiola will be delighted to see the back of him.
4) It was a Big Boy start from City, who had four half chances before Liverpool had seen any meaningful possession. Kevin De Bruyne was afforded a lot of space – a dangerous game when any space whatsoever afforded to De Bruyne can end in disaster. Phil Foden should have done better having been found in the box by the playmaker, whose one-two with Erling Haaland set up Julian Alvarez for a shot, before De Bruyne’s own effort stung the palms of Caoimhin Kelleher and his dinked cross drifted harmlessly out of play.
It would have been a rout had the flow of the game continued in such a manner, with Anfield noise reduced to whistles at City possession rather than the roaring more typical of games of this magnitude. Had we been told at that point that De Bruyne would be taken off after 70 minutes we would have assumed it would have been to save his legs after a couple of assists with City in cruise control.
5) Ibrahima Konate’s absence could have been significant. Jarell Quansah has impressed in his five Premier League starts this season, but in direct battles with Matheus Cunha, Odsonne Edouard, Lyle Foster, David Datro Fofana and Cauley Woodrow, not Erling Haaland.
But as has been the case pretty much whenever the academy graduates have been called upon in the last month or so, he was unfazed by the challenge, dealing with Haaland as he would the relative run-of-the-mill strikers he will have come across thus far in his burgeoning career.
He was caught on the ball once, with that slight error forcing Caoimhin Kelleher to save at Foden’s feet, but he made more passes (87) than anyone on the pitch other than Rodri (95), with a significant number of those hit firmly through gaps to midfielders or forwards between the lines, and completed two dribbles through the heart of City’s midfield, with one ending in a shot that was well saved by Stefan Ortega.
Quansah has said previously that he is looking to learn “everything” from Van Dijk, and looks as though he’s absorbed a good chunk already.
6) The game changed courtesy of another one of The Kids. Van Dijk sent a crossfield ball like a rugby spiral kick into the path of Conor Bradley, who turned Nathan Ake inside out before his cross-shot just evaded Darwin Nunez, who very nearly Phil Babbed the post.
It was a well-executed, but very simple move, that flicked The Anfield Switch, as fans and players appeared to remember as one that City are getatable, particularly when you’re Liverpool. After John Stones’ goal in the 23rd minute, Liverpool had 17 shots to City’s six, and Klopp said after the game that the second half performance was their “best ever” against Guardiola’s side. “We’ve never dominated like that before,” he added.
7) City’s goal was a training ground move made possible through the quality of De Bruyne’s delivery, but at least half the credit goes not to the players who made Liverpool pay but to set-piece coach Carlos Vicens, who is presumably the man to have recognised Liverpool’s front-post weakness. This wasn’t a move in their general repertoire, but one specific to Liverpool, and possibly even this particular game.
Ake moved Alexis Mac Allister out of the way to make room for John Stones, who had the relatively easy task of poking home De Bruyne’s cross, which was as good as they come. Playing an outswinging corner to finish three yards out from the front post without that ball going out of play is an absurdly difficult skill.
The Ake blocking, conceding a goal to City from a set piece, the inevitable lauding of City’s genius compared to theirs, and a Divock Origi ‘corner taken quickly!’ vibe were all conspiringly painful aspects for Liverpool, but Mac Allister should have been stronger and Darwin Nunez more aware.
8) Mac Allister was excellent besides. His penalty was unstoppable, made more difficult by the time he had to wait to convert it, and he was the standout member of Liverpool’s brilliant three-man midfield.
This was just the fifth time Mac Allister, Wataru Endo and Dominik Szoboszlai have started a game together, and they dominated. Rodri has now gone 61 games without tasting defeat, but he must have been smelling it in that second half, particularly before Mateo Kovacic joined him to shore up what had been as soft a City centre as we’ve seen in a long time.
The Liverpool trio played through them with the sort of one-touch passing and movement that City usually exhibit to toy with their other opponents. Stones, magnificent in the Manchester derby, was rarely seen venturing into midfield or beyond, while Bernardo Silva grew more and more frustrated by his lack of opportunity to affect the game.
Endo has gone up a level or two since returning from the Asia Cup, and is carving out a niche as a big-game player for Klopp, perhaps not required in games against lesser opponents, but crucial in highly pressurised fixtures. He was very good in the Carabao Cup final and again against City on Sunday.
9) Mac Allister should never have been given the chance from the spot. Ake’s pass was short but Ederson should have dealt with it, either through kidology or – more simply – by not taking a massive swing at the ball and instead clearing out Nunez, who nicked the ball beyond him.
Nunez is a very fine footballer, but he’s not famed for his composure in front of goal, in fact – somewhat unfairly – is known for being the complete opposite. If Ederson had come out and feigned a challenge, there’s a pretty good chance he could have shepherded the ball out of play, or at the very least forced Nunez to shoot from a very tight angle.
But the better, safer option would have been to tackle Nunez rather than trying to launch the ball into the stands. There’s milliseconds between Ederson successfully getting to that ball or not, and the time it took for him to swing his left leg back until contact gave Nunez an avoidable advantage.
10) Liverpool players won the vast majority of their individual battles against their Man City counterparts, the most intriguing and enjoyable of which saw Luis Diaz give supposedly unflappable defender Kyle Walker quite the runaround.
In fairness, it did feel like Walker was defending on his own at times, but this display was at odds with the ease with which he dealt with Marcus Rashford (howitzer aside) last weekend. The unshakeable defender – among the best in one-on-one situations in Premier League history – looked genuinely flustered, with the nadir of his afternoon arriving late in the piece as both he and Rodri chased Diaz, who put the midfielder on his arse before sending Walker for a hotdog.
Diaz was both Liverpool’s best player and the one most culpable for them not winning this game. He spurned three very presentable chances between the 59th and 63rd minute, miscontroling a return pass from Nunez in the box after an excellent initial run, racing onto a brilliant Mohamed Salah through ball but failing to get the required curl on his shot to bring it inside the far post, and then passing up the opportunity to sweep a Szoboslai cross towards goal first time.
Diaz would still be running now, but would have missed a dozen or so further chances.
11) City will have feared the worst after Salah’s first contribution was to play that perfectly weighted pass through their defence. 11 goals and seven assists in 19 games against them, Salah is the City kryptonite.
But he looked like a footballer who’s played an hour of football since mid-January after that first wonderful intervention, with neither his final ball nor his decision-making up to his normal ludicrously potent standard.
12) A battle that Liverpool didn’t win, though social media tells a very different story, was Van Dijk vs Haaland. You know immediately what we’re talking about, because you, like us, will have moved towards the edge of your seat, or indeed fully out of it, as one titan ran at the other.
It was as though Eric Cantona had dropped the ball between them from a hole in the roof of the Anfield cage such was the anticipation and joy we felt in that moment, as the best striker in the Premier League faced up the best defender of a generation.
Haaland smiled after the exchange, presumably aware of the exhilaration it will have provided to the masses, but also because he will have quite reasonably felt that a second chance to run at Van Dijk may well have resulted in a goal. Because although he didn’t score, he picked up the ball in his own half, dribbled to the edge of Liverpool’s box and got a shot away with his favoured left foot. Unfortunately, no further opportunity arose.
13) Man City may well have won had De Bruyne remained on the pitch – which was presumably the jist of what he was whingeing to Guardiola about – but they would far more likely have lost.
Just six of De Bruyne’s 34 touches came in his 25 second-half minutes, and one of those was the kick-off. Having replaced him to sit alongside Rodri in midfield, Kovacic had 32 touches and was on the pitch for less than half the time. It was a smart move from Guardiola, though his critics might suggest it would have been even smarter to start the game with Kovacic, who isn’t just a further body in midfield, but has the ability to drift past opposition players in possession as well as pass it around them.
Liverpool remained on top, but at least some of the sting was taken out of their football after the Croatian’s introduction, sting that would surely have put paid to City had it continued to go unchecked.
De Bruyne’s reaction was pretty high on the Bruno Fernandes scale of petulance, and it’s worth noting that were it the Manchester United captain pundits would be dining off it for the next week, rather than writing it off as a show of desire and competitiveness, as it’s sure to be having been displayed by King Kevin.
Kevin De Bruyne was not happy about being substituted.
14) There was one significant smash-and-grab chance for City. It was about the only time in the second half that they managed to beat the Liverpool press and evade challenges, as Foden found Haaland, who spread it to substitute Jeremy Doku with some space on the left.
The winger’s season has fizzled – certainly in terms of goal contributions – to an alarming extent. Other than a goal against Huddersfield in the FA Cup, he’s not scored or assisted since his four assists and a goal against Bournemouth at the start of November.
Guardiola and City would have ceded all five of those contributions for his excellent drive to be an inch or two to the left, seeing it go in off the post rather than rebounding into Kelleher’s grateful grasp.
15) Kelleher was great again and looks as though he’s the Liverpool goalkeeper. Losing their first-choice for five games could easily have been enough to derail the Liverpool title challenge, but they’ve not missed Alisson, just as City didn’t miss Ederson when he was forced off injured.
Stefan Ortega looked as comfortable as his Liverpool counterpart, in what was an excellent Sunday for title challenger stand-in goalkeepers, after a less excellent Saturday.
People were very upset at the thought of Aaron Ramsdale being snubbed to the bench at Arsenal, but while he makes ricks when given a chance to prove himself, the Liverpool and City subs have shown themselves fit for life as Premier League No.1s. In Kelleher’s case, might that be in place of Alisson? Liverpool certainly won’t want to lose him ahead of next season, at which point he will surely be craving a starting spot.
16) It was a good result in Race For The Title terms, with the top three separated by one point. Arsenal go to the Etihad at the end of March in the next Cup Final of ten for each of them, while Liverpool host Brighton.
It’s a shame the international break will put the race on hold, particularly for Arsenal and Liverpool, who currently have the all-important momentum after the former’s last gasp victory and the latter’s dominance at Anfield over the reigning champions.
That’s how we would have it. Two challengers with momentum against the winning machine. It’s set up beautifully anyway, but thick and fast Premier League games wouldn’t have granted City the opportunity to reset, which they looked in dire need of at the end of a game in which they were as distant a second best as we can remember.
