Liverpool take giant step towards ending 30-year title wait
If not this season, then when will Liverpool win the Premier League title? As they celebrated a fabulous victory over champions Manchester City it will have been the question quietly spoken by every one of their fans as they finally caught their breath. It is the question deep in their souls and now at the forefront of their minds.
Come May 17, the final day of the league season, will they remember a bitterly cold November afternoon when they dismantled Pep Guardiola’s side as the game they want to look back upon and cherish?
Was it the day power shifted and Liverpool took a decisive grip in their bid to bring the title back to Anfield for the first time in 30 years? Liverpool have a nine-point lead over City, who are now fourth, and an eight-point advantage over Leicester and Chelsea. Although it seems dramatic to say so, it already feels – despite there being 26 games to go – that it may take something catastrophic from them or something extraordinary from one of their rivals for Liverpool not to triumph from here. City are capable of so much but have they, already, left themselves with too much to do against this formidable side?
It does not appear conceivable at present for Liverpool, who would have to lose at least three times from now until the end of the campaign, or trip over a series of draws, to give their rivals a sliver of hope.
Liverpool have a sense of inevitability, of invincibility and ruthless belief about them. They ride their luck, as all good attacking teams do, and they exploit their fortune as all title winners are expected to.
Their momentum is frightening for the rest of the league. They have forgotten how to lose.
This was undoubtedly a good day to play City, decimated defensively and without their goalkeeper, Ederson, as well as their best defender, Aymeric Laporte. They simply could not cope with Liverpool’s awesome counter-attacking power.
Guardiola was raging. As Jurgen Klopp was whipping up the Kop, the City manager strode to referee Michael Oliver and his assistants and sarcastically thanked them for their performance, after they failed to award his side what he felt were two clear penalties, the first before Liverpool had scored their opener.
It showed the pressure; it showed the stakes as City again failed to win at Anfield – a stadium where they still have not triumphed since 2003 – but took a very different approach to last season, when they were cautious. This time they went for it and maybe paid the price for boldness.
Liverpool lapped it up. Anfield wanted a toe-to-toe fight and here it was. Every time their team went forward it looked likely they would score. The result meant Liverpool equalled the English top-flight record of 11 wins and a draw after 12 matches – something they achieved themselves the last time they won the league, in 1990.
“It was intense from the first second,” Klopp said. City, in fairness, were dominant until perhaps the key moment when Bernardo Silva ran into the penalty area and was challenged by Dejan Lovren, with the ball rebounding off Silva’s hand and striking Trent Alexander-arnold’s outstretched arm.
Sergio Aguero stopped and led demands for a penalty – when perhaps he had the chance to score – but play continued with Liverpool sweeping forward. A cross by Sadio Mane was blocked but Ilkay Gundogan poked the ball out to Fabinho. He took a touch and struck a powerful drive from 25 yards, its ferocity catching out goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, who would prove a less-than-able understudy.
City created opportunities, with Kevin De Bruyne, who went on to have a fine game, setting up Raheem Sterling, who also played well, John Stones and Aguero. But they were all wasteful and Angelino hit a post with a shot that deflected off Virgil van Dijk.
Meanwhile, Liverpool struck again. And what a goal it was. What an example of Klopp’s football at its best and how, also, to beat a highintensity pressing team like City. Alexander-arnold sent the ball from deep on the right to the left flank to release Andrew Robertson into one of his galloping runs that ended with a wonderful, whipped outswinging cross. Fernandinho, at centre-half, failed to cut it out and Mohamed Salah kept his eye on the ball to steer a header back across Bravo and into the net.
It meant an apparently even first half, which City arguably edged, ended with them two goals down. Soon it was three. Jordan Henderson easily beat Gundogan down the right and crossed. Bravo misjudged the flight, and Mane stole in at the far post to head in off the keeper.
Was it game over? Was it title race over? City again demanded a penalty when Sterling’s cross hit Alexander-arnold’s hand from a couple of feet away, with Guardiola dancing down the touchline in anger. Then the manager held his head as Aguero failed with a tap-in.
Finally they did strike, with De Bruyne winning the ball inside the Liverpool area and Angelino pulling back a low cross that ran to Silva, who steered a first-time shot that beat Alisson at his near post.
Suddenly there were nerves inside Anfield, with substitute Gabriel Jesus and Kyle Walker both heading over from close range. City pressed hard but they had given themselves too much to do. The fear for them and the hope for Liverpool is that the same now applies in the title race.
Liverpool have a sense of ruthless belief about them. They have forgotten how to lose