City’s reign comes to a frantic, fractured close
A Premier League title won in absentia, in an empty stadium surrounded by empty streets, 200 miles from Anfield in late June, 30 years on from a time when Liverpool could not conceive of an era when they would not dominate English football. This was how the wait ended, the club’s historic moment atomised across front rooms all watching the last dropped points in the title race of the never-ending season of 2019-2020.
In the Covid era, football stadiums feel fractured from the real emotion of the game, delivering results and outcomes rather than the whole connection that football is intended to provide fan and player. Perhaps even a full Stamford Bridge would have cleared out early at the prospect of delivering Anfield its long sought-after title, but there would have been a story on the faces of the supporters here and elsewhere rather than the echoing shouts of another game played behind closed doors.
This was not the dramatic end to a title drought that has transformed the way one of English football’s great clubs came to think of themselves – weeping fans, rapture, all the usual stuff that goes with epochal moments. But it was the end nonetheless. Liverpool are not the first team to win the title on a day when they did not play, but they are the first to win it in the era of selfisolation. Some of their supporters gathered at Anfield. The rest will have settled for doing so from home for a moment none will forget.
They won their first title since 1990 with seven games to spare and about 11 weeks later than they expected. Chelsea, the club who had denied Jurgen Klopp’s predecessor a title at Anfield in 2014, put on one of the performances of their season to beat the great Pep Guardiola Manchester City machine. There was a winning penalty from Willian, who also scored on that day six years ago when Brendan Rodgers’s side slipped and faltered, and it seemed that a title-winning chance presented in the era of wealthier, more powerful clubs had passed them by.
Chelsea and City are two of the clubs who have been transformed since Liverpool won their 18th league title 30 years ago, yet neither of them this season have been able to get close to rivals whom they have often surpassed since the turn of the century. City fought for this game until the end, and with it the right to take Liverpool to another match at the Etihad Stadium on Thursday. Although, with the game level in the closing stages, they could not quite find the winner to put Chelsea away. So the game and their title, held for the last two seasons, was lost.
Chelsea were outstanding once they had settled into the match and Frank Lampard seemed to have got to grips with the kind of challenge that Guardiola’s teams present. This is just the third of Guardiola’s 11-season management career across Spain, Germany and England when he has not won the league title. It is a formidable record, but there is no denying the size of the gap – 23 points – when this one was conceded.
The Etihad Stadium on Thursday will see a curious meeting of two sides with little to play for, other than to exert their usual excellence. One presumes that Klopp and Guardiola’s teams will be unable to resist the temptation to try to make a point to the other. On the evidence of this week’s performances it could be a difficult night for City, although it is always hard to tell with this side. In their two previous games since the restart, they looked magnificent.
There were moments, when they came back into the game with Kevin De Bruyne’s second-half equaliser, that you had to admire the defiance, but even for a team as relentless as this it can be hard to maintain a pursuit that feels hopeless. Missing the injured Sergio Aguero, Guardiola had decided to play without a recognised No9, keeping Gabriel Jesus on the bench until the second half. Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez were the most advanced players, both in wide positions. Between them came Bernardo Silva in the false-nine role. They never created the chances their dominance warranted.
Chelsea took their time to adjust to the challenge of playing City – the choking of spaces, the immediate pressure when the ball comes out to defenders – but by the end of the first half, Lampard’s players had grown accustomed to what was being asked of them.
The first goal from Christian Pulisic was dispatched beautifully by the American as he rushed towards a Shed End with nothing but the flags laid out on the seats and the only gasps of anticipation coming from the home bench.
A glitch in the Guardiola plan. De Bruyne had just delivered a freekick into the area that was cleared and, with little in the way of blue shirts to pick it up, the away team were just selecting their options to resume the attack. Benjamin Mendy left the ball to Ilkay Gundogan, or perhaps Gundogan left it to Mendy. Either way the possibilities dawned relatively slowly on Pulisic, who eventually saw his chance and swept the ball past both City players to bear down on goal alone.
The finish was splendid, his body shape telling Ederson that it would be going past the goalkeeper’s left hand and the whip of the right boot confirming that there was nothing the Brazilian could do about it.
The false-nine plan was abandoned soon after half-time as Chelsea prepared to defend a free-kick and Bernardo was replaced with Jesus. There was no doubt what it was that De Bruyne was planning to do with his right foot, the only question was whether Kepa Arrizabalaga could stop it. He was never really close to a dipping shot hit into the top corner for the equaliser.
The game became open and wild as both teams went for a winner that was nearly claimed by Mason Mount, whose shot was cleared off the line by Kyle Walker. Then Fernandinho was forced to handle to keep out a shot by substitute Tammy Abraham. Var called a penalty and a red card for the City player. Up stepped Willian, for one shot in an empty stadium that echoed around the world.