City land first blow in fight for supremacy
(Man City win 5-4o n penalties)
The message which flashed around the pitch perimeter, promoting a new FA mental health campaign, stated: ‘Change the conversation.’
That plainly will not be happening in the fight for football supremacy between the two outstanding teams in the land.
It had been 84 days since Manchester City finally won through in a title fight surpassing all others and the two combatants picked up where they had left off — trading blows, signature moments of class and goals, with an animus which signalled how they are emerging as the bitterest of rivals: the Manchester United versus Arsenal of this age.
Neither looked the finished Premier League article. City, in particular, were blowing by the end. But it was a compelling reprise of the old story, including a finale in which Liverpool threw everything at the Pep Guardiola machine.
The outcome had a familiarity about it, too. Liverpool, who created most of the chances and played the better football, lost by the last kick of a penalty shoot-out in which Georginio Wijnaldum’s miss was enough to deny them victory. Gabriel Jesus’s decisive kick made it the maximum five for the victors. A reminder of the pitifully small margin for error in the months ahead.
After a campaign in which 97 Premier League points were still not enough, Klopp needs a falling off in City’s competitive challenge if Liverpool are to clinch the title, 30 years after their last one, yet the champions began in a way which suggested they are improved. Their new record signing Rodri, operating at the back of midfield, looked a more elegant, more mobile, version of Fernandinho, whom he will replace.
It took just a fractional positional failing — Joe Gomez allowing David Silva to navigate a free-kick into the path of Raheem Sterling — to see City ahead. Alisson, short of match-readiness after helping Brazil in the Copa America, could have done better than allowing the