SANE SHAKES UP TITLE RACE
German hits winner as sizzling City rein in the runaway Reds
OFF it came, from the inside of the right post. Along the goal line, in at the left post. Ladies and gentlemen, Leroy Sane’s matchwinner has given us what is known as a title race.
And a proper one, now the head-to-head meetings of these teams are done. Match by match, weekend by weekend, they will fight each other by proxy around the grounds. Maybe Tottenham will chip in, too. It should be grand entertainment. Buckle up.
Manchester City are right back in it — and deservedly so. They shaded this, even if it was an unconventional performance from a Pep Guardiola side, more blood and thunder than tiki-taka.
The dying minutes of the match even found him channelling his inner Jurgen Klopp, imploring, gesturing to the crowd to make more noise and get behind the team as they regrouped to repel a barrage of Liverpool long balls.
When the danger finally passed, and a goal-kick was awarded, there was none of that highbrow playing out to the full-back. Ten blue shirts headed upfield and Guardiola ordered Ederson to kick as long as he could. And that man can kick.
So all’s well that ends well, certainly from the point of view of City and neutrals.
It may still be that Liverpool win the league. They continue to look the best team, even if last night’s display was uncharacteristically skittish in moments, with passes going astray and nerves apparent.
Yet this may have dented their confidence and means they can’t afford to tinker greatly with their domestic selections, even when the Champions League reconvenes.
As for City, this is a huge boost, with another to come. The presence of Kevin De Bruyne on the bench suggests they are very close to naming the triumvirate of KDB, Fernandinho and David Silva in midfield again — a threesome almost as vital as Liverpool’s Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane.
Others will be brimming with confidence again, after recent setbacks — not least matchwinner Sane. Just at the point when Liverpool looked to have triumphed — not with victory, but with the draw that would keep City at arm’s length — he intervened.
As it stood, with the score at 1-1, Liverpool were on course to maintain their seven-point advantage. A hefty margin, even in January. It would require City to stay unbeaten and Liverpool to lose two, maybe three, games when they were yet to surrender one, coming here.
Sane cut a hole in that safety net after 72 minutes, slicing Liverpool’s lead to four points. Still a decent gap but far from comfortable. All it might take is the odd slip or two. And last night was a slip, no doubt about it.
Liverpool were second best for much of the game but, having equalised, they looked capable of holding out. It was then that Raheem Sterling ran the ball crossfield and picked out Sane. He made a good angle, saw the opportunity open up and struck a low left-foot shot towards the far corner. He could not have been more precise. It was a winner worthy of the occasion. City’s performance was worthy, too.
Yes, they remain defensively vulnerable. Liverpool’s equaliser was a classic example of the frailty that has left Guardiola’s champions playing catch-up. A deep cross from Trent AlexanderArnold should have been dealt with at the far post. Instead, Danilo got trapped underneath it, Andrew Robertson played a chip across the six-yard box and Firmino headed the ball into an empty net.
Then, late in the game, Salah had a shot saved by Ederson, and Guardiola (right) nearly talked himself into a seat in the main stand protesting what he saw as a push by Jordan Henderson on John Stones in the build-up. He was sent off here in the Champions League, last season, too.
Yet, not for the first time on the night, referee Anthony Taylor indulged and City prevailed. They got away with one in the first half as well in a brief spell that changed the match, and maybe the title race, too. In the 18th minute, Liverpool got an excellent chance against the run of play. Salah slipped the ball through to Mane who was left one on one with keeper Ederson. He finished low, but the ball struck the inside of a post and came out. Stones reached it first and in his haste to clear, did not notice Ederson recovering to smother the danger. He tried to smash it away, but found Ederson rather than clear air and suddenly the ball was heading back towards his own goal. Stones cleared it off the line, technology showed, by a sliver. Without assistance, we would still be debating it; and the linesman would have been left guessing, and making a 50-50 call — probably the wrong one given that, to the naked eye, it looked over.
Technology doesn’t yet rule elsewhere on the field and City will be thankful for that. Not long after, Stones played a careless loose ball to Vincent Kompany, who found himself in a 45-55 with Salah, deep in City’s half.
Had he lost it, there was the opener. So he lunged. He took the ball, but the Liverpool man, too — no way was he in control. It could easily have been a red card, but Taylor seemed motivated by the strange imperative that overtakes English referees on nights like this: he didn’t want to spoil the occasion.
Yellow it was and City’s captain remained. Was the match better for it? Of course. Was justice done in that moment? Probably not.
So City’s first goal was vital. Since the start of the 2011-12 season, Sergio Aguero has scored 37 league goals against the ‘big six’ clubs. He has also scored in all seven games he has played, at home, against Liverpool. This, once again, was the epitome of the goalscorer’s art. Intelligence, wit, accuracy.
It was typical Aguero, a quite superb goal from a tight angle, the type of defining moment for which goalscorers earn the big bucks.
City must have been wondering how they were going to get past Virgil van Dijk. And Aguero had the answer to that... play against Dejan Lovren instead.
He improvised brilliantly in the build-up. The merest touch from Van Dijk as the pair jostled for a cross sent Aguero to ground, appealing for a penalty. Ref Taylor was having none of it, so Aguero had a better idea.
He stayed down, in protest, as the ball was cleared and carried around the perimeter of the penalty area by Bernardo Silva. Only then did Aguero rise as Silva moved into position to recycle.
Now he had lost Van Dijk and
PEP Guardiola hailed his ‘outstanding’ Manchester City side after they breathed life into the title race by inflicting liverpool’s first Premier league defeat of the season. leroy Sane’s dramatic matchwinner turned up the heat on Jurgen Klopp’s side by cutting their lead at the top of the table to four points. and Guardiola declared: ‘We beat an incredible team. We were outstanding from the first minute. ‘We are so happy for this victory to reduce the gap. Everything is open. ‘if we’d lost, it was almost done and it would have been so difficult. But now we are four points behind them. We have to fight a lot, but this gives us a lot of confidence. ‘Winning is addictive, the taste of it. We