Mahrez despair as City blow chance
● Algerian misses late spot-kick for Guardiola men in dull Anfield draw
There can be no true despair without hope. And Anfield was absolutely packed with it: the hope of goals, the hope of thrills, the hope of yet another unrelenting meeting between Liverpool and Manchester City. So was it the most unexpected goalless draw ever?
You can only despair when a match so hyped ends in so little.
The game’s only real action of note did not arrive until the final five minutes when Virgil Van Dijk fouled substitute Leroy Sane to concede a penalty. Riyad Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus had a little disagreement about who should take it. The Algerian won, then smashed the ball so far over the crossbar it almost went out of the stand. It was ultimately a penalty kick the match deserved.
Football simply never behaves how it is supposed to, which is what makes the sport so enthralling, apart from when these games predictably bursting with goals end up producing none.
City’s team coach – described as a ‘battle bus’ for the way it had been kitted out with state-of-theart technology to prevent a repeat of their last visit when it was vandalised so badly en route they had to schedule alternative travel back – rolled into Anfield unscathed. The 15 high definition cameras fitted all around it will have some pretty sharp but dull footage.
As did the television cameras in the stadium, for most of the game. The Jurgen Klopp versus Pep Guardiola factor, the action-packed recent meetings; it all kind of cancelled each other out into nothingness.
So many people were discussing how amazing it was all going to be you wanted to shake them by the shoulders and implore them to shut up. Eighteen goals were scored in the four meetings between the two sides last season, didn’t you know?
Then the game started almost too fast for anything of real meaning to happen. The first ten minutes were all Liverpool, if all of nothing is still something. Until City managed to slow the blur of Liverpool players right down, launching a stick of passes into their opponent’s back wheel. Guardiola admitted that was their intention, labelling Liverpool’s front line of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah, pictured, the best in the world and having conceded nine goals in three games against
them realising he had to do something different. While great for City, unfortunately it meant there was not a single shot on target for an hour. Even the three off target were a record-matching low for a first half this season in the Premier League, on par with Newcastle v Arsenal and Huddersfield v Cardiff.
During the break the body of Spidercam was lowered to the touchline where two engineers tried to fix a fault. It was just as likely there was little wrong with it, and the producers in the studio could simply not fathom what they were seeing on their screens.
Guardiola turned to Jesus, in the 66th minute, and took off Sergio Aguero, who went a tenth game without scoring at Anfield. The City boss locked the Argentinian in a hug as he stalked off in a strop,
but the player still made his frustration clear by batting away a handshake in the dugout and shoving his hood over his head.
Somebody really needs to realign Salah. He is getting in all the right places, like he did in his 46-goal, Golden Bootwinning campaign last season, but mucking up the finish every time. His trademark curler with the left instep keeps rolling into the keeper’s hands, as they did several times against Paris Saintgermain in the Champions League and again against Ederson. He was free to the left of goal, too, but fired wildly over, and bent a long freekick wide of the left post. Then he went through one-on-one and yet still he missed again.
In an interview building up to the match Van Dijk discussed at length how he never
likes a sliding tackle because it means he has not positioned himself right, and is acting in desperation. And there he was, on 85 minutes, out of position and sliding desperately to reach Sane and giving away a spot-kick.
Mahrez had missed three of his previous five penalties so there were some City players probably despairing that the Algerian was stood there ready to take it. Particularly Jesus. A huge moment to win the game and give City a gap at the top of the table.
A moment full of hope, which ended in despair.