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 the country, 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 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 campaign. Why should he? Yet there will be no invincible season and maybe more managers will now 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 sheer urgency of their transition play.
Remember Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester at their peak? There is no higher compliment than to say Liverpool reminded us of that, but perhaps with greater finesse.
Liverpool were superb, restricting City to four shots on target. That City scored three goals may be a worry for Klopp, but the return of virgil van Dijk should shore them up. This was a hugely positive afternoon for Liverpool. City may have got away from them, and everybody else, this season but a year from now, who knows?
Between the 60th and 68th minutes, City were dismantled. Liverpool scored three goals and hit a post through Sadio Mane in that time. In the five minutes before, ederson had made two fine saves. It was an outstanding period of sustained pressure and focus, not least because City had started the half well, hitting the bar through a header by nicolas Otamendi.
Had that gone in, maybe the outcome would have been different. Yet City didn’t catch the break, and Liverpool capitalised. Mohamed Salah had a powerful shot saved by ederson, who then smothered an effort by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Yet what happened next will resonate throughout football. Liverpool scored and scored and scored again. In doing so, they inflicted more damage on City and Guardiola than the rest of their Premier League rivals put together this season.
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. Why couldn’t they do this? By the end, players who had previously conceded just five goals away from
home in the Premier League were made to look skittish and soft.
Frailties surfaced and were exploited beautifully. John Stones, Otamendi, Ederson, the key to City’s defensive resurgence, were all harassed into mistakes.
‘We’ve won it five times,’ the locals sing of their European triumphs — and that is, coincidentally, the number of times Klopp has now defeated Guardiola. Few wins will give him the pleasure of this one.
So, those three goals. The first came on the hour. Oxlade-Chamberlain played the ball through to Roberto Firmino, who outmuscled Stones, before lifting a finish past Ederson and in, one bounce, off the far post. Was it a foul? No chance. Stones is a centre half and would be expected to be stronger than this.
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 couldn’t get better? It could.
Salah over-hit 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 it over his head and 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 left, then Ilkay Gundogan made it 4-3 in stoppage time to conjure fears of a famous comeback.
It was not enough. When Andre Marriner blew the final whistle moments later, it was Klopp’s turn to join the supporters in ecstasy. So, in one way for Arsenal, it was a good day. Their invincibility remains intact. In another, it was dreadful. Not just the defeat at Bournemouth, but a reminder after nine minutes that mistakes are piling up in north London. That was when the excellent Firmino won a tussle with Fabian Delph and fed Oxlade-Chamberlain some 40 yards from goal.
Oxlade-Chamberlain was a controversial selection, not because he hasn’t been in good nick lately, but because his inclusion relegated Adam Lallana to the bench, so soon after a handy display against Everton in the FA Cup.
Klopp’s call was vindicated by what happened next. OxladeChamberlain drove past Fernandinho and unleashed a low shot from 25 yards that flew across Ederson and in. Why was this bad news for Arsenal? The numbers. Oxlade-Chamberlain has scored as many goals in his last 20 Premier League matches for Liverpool as he did in his last 71 for Arsenal. Without doubt, he has improved under Klopp.
The lead did not last to half-time, but Liverpool made a statement with their first-half display. It took City 20 minutes to create a chance, a lovely cross from Kevin De Bruyne that Sergio Aguero could not get a touch on in the six-yard box. And when they equalised after 41 minutes, it was about as near to ‘against the run of play’ as any City goal this season.
Raheem Sterling, booed as usual, fed the ball to Kyle Walker who hit a lovely crossfield pass from the right-back position. It found Sane and he did the rest, cutting inside a bamboozled Joe Gomez and finishing smartly past Loris