Klopp rattles Guardiola and City fall apart
SO, this is the thing with Pep Guardiola’s philosophy. It is special and it is beguiling and one day it will be his to patent. But when it goes wrong, it goes really wrong.
Here at an enraptured Anfield, the wheels of Manchester City’s European season came spinning off in a way nobody could have imagined.
During a pre-match exchange, Guardiola was asked why he never considers a change of tactics, especially for away games in Europe where a clean sheet can be almost as valuable as a goal.
In some ways the question was a compliment because it acknowledged Guardiola’s bravery and commitment to attack. Equally, it pointed to stubbornness, a failure to recognise a flaw in his approach to football.
Whatever the case, his answer was telling. Guardiolaa said his players would findd it ‘scary’ to be asked to change their ways.
So, something that t had sounded like a manager expressing his steadfast belief in winning on his own terms sounded at fulltime last night like the e words of a coach who ho has never understoodd or appreciated the importance tance of flexibility.
That is strange to say about someone as innovative and intelligent as Guardiola. He has brought something special to English football already. But this was the worst kind of Groundhog Day for the Spaniard.
With Bayern Munich, he lost a 2014 Champions League semi-final 5-0 over two legs to Real Madrid. In Manchester next week, he has the chance to save face, even if it will take something extraordinary to save this tie.
As magnificent as Jurgen Klopp’s buccaneering Liverpool were, this was a defeat fashioned on the back of Guardiola intransigence and straightforward City mistakes. Between coach and players, the blame must be shared.
Guardiola had smiled wanly when asked about the Anfield atmosphere ahead of this match and therefore he may have been as surprised as anybody at how abjectly his players failed to cope. For the nuts and bolts of this story are that City began positively and then fell apart.
After the second Liverpool goal had ripped past him in the 20th minute, City goalkeeper Ederson could only turn to the blue shirts in front of him and shrug. It was that kind of night.
Earlier, there had been little sign of the crisis that was about to crash on to City’s shores. They had played the better football, enjoyed more possession and looked in control.
But in football one error can soon become two, three and four. And that was what happened in 19 minutes of football that may well have settled this tie.
City supporters attempted to project some kind of superiority over those massed at the Kop end. ‘Just like United, you live in the past,’ they chorused and a banner held aloft by the Liverpool fans listing a quintet of European Cup wins that concluded with their most recent one 13 years ago added credence to the taunt.
But Klopp’s Liverpool are a burgeoning force and this was another night to enhance the feeling it will be they who challenge City for domestic dominance next year. Guardiola had also said he hoped the Liverpool supporters would be ‘nice and polite’. That was always a forlorn hope and after the regrettable attack on the City team bus came the kind of ambush on the field for which the Reds are becoming famous.
Liverpool were irrepressible, as they can be when they get on a roll. City, though, failed to react to the growing crisis, failed to close down the areas of the field in which Liverpool were hurting them. These failings were apparent when City lost 4-3 here in the league in January and it became clear lessons had not been learned.
Liverpool did have moments of fortune. Mo Salah was offside in the run-up to the first goal, for example. But City contributed to their own downfall by making errors in the concession of all three goals and this should alarm those at the Etihad who will not be satisfied until Guardiola — or someone else — takes them to the top of the European game.
Liverpool surprised us here, too, but in a different way. Klopp’s team showed in the second half that they can retreat into an organised defensive shape to keep even a team of City’s gifts at arm’s length.
To that end, the most remarkable statistic of the night showed City failed to register a single shot on target.
After three games between the teams this season, City now lead 8-7 on aggregate. Given they won the first of the trilogy 5-0, that illustrates how Klopp has learned lessons that maybe the gilded Guardiola has not.