A breathtaking encounter ends with Liverpool victorious despite a late comeback from the champions-elect…
Manchester City’s phenomenal 32-game unbeaten run in domestic competitions has finally come to an end at the hands of a scintillating Liverpool at Anfield.
The top-flight’s two most potent attacks served up a thrilling encounter that lived up to all the pre-match hype and expectations.
Liverpool were dealt a blow prior to kick-off when it emerged that new signing Virgil van Dijk, fresh from scoring the winner on his debut against Everton in the FA Cup last Friday, was missing with a minor hamstring strain.
Both sides, as everyone hoped given their impressive respective form, started brightly; passing the ball around quickly and confidently.
The first opening of note disappeared when Sadio Mané‘s first touch took him away from goal but Liverpool didn’t have to wait long to break the deadlock as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain drove past Fernandinho and fired beyond the reach of Ederson in the 9th minute.
The goal served to raise the already impressive tempo even further and Mohamed Salah had a great chance to double the hosts’ lead in the 15th minute but he disappointingly poked wide from close range.
City were having periods of possession in dangerous areas but, in general, Liverpool’s defence was standing up well to the threat of Sergio Agüero and co, while their midfield and attacking players were pressing and harassing excellently up the other end of the pitch.
A deflected Sané shot almost delivered City an equaliser around the midway point of the half, while for the Reds Roberto Firmino headed a difficult chance wide following an excellent Oxlade-Chamberlain cross.
The visitors’ first shot on target finally arrived in the 35th minute but Kevin De Bruyne’s effort from distance was comfortably dealt with by Loris Karius, who was surprisingly preferred in goal to Simon Mignolet by Kop boss Jürgen Klopp.
A strong spell for the hosts followed but they were undone shortly before the interval when Joe Gomez was caught under a high cross-field pass and Sané somehow beat Karius at his near post.
An end-to-end opening to the second half included Nicolas Otamendi heading against a crossbar and Ederson getting down low to palm a fierce Oxlade-Chamberlain effort around the post.
Liverpool retook the lead in the 59th minute when Firmino outmuscled John Stones, after another excellent piece of play by Oxlade-Chamberlain, and delicately slotted home via the inside of the post.
A third for the suddenly rampant Merseysiders almost followed directly from the restart but the woodwork denied Mané. It was only a temporary reprieve for City though as the Senegalese speedster fired an unstoppable left-footed effort into the roof of the net in the 62nd minute.
Amazingly three become four six minutes later when Salah profited from an uncharacteristically poor Ederson clearance by brilliantly controlling the ball and then clipping it over the retreating Brazilian from 40-yards out.
City commendably kept pushing forward in numbers in the closing stages despite the scoreline and it left them repeatedly exposed on the counter.
Otamendi should have pulled a goal back with just under 15 minutes remaining but the unmarked Argentine defender couldn’t connect sufficiently at the far post.
Liverpool then wasted plenty of opportunities to make the game truly safe before substitute Bernado Silva made it 4-2 with seven minutes remaining.
A repeat of their capitulations at Arsenal and Sevilla this season suddenly looked on the cards when İlkay Gündoğan popped up among a host of bodies to poke home in the first minute of four minutes of injury time.
Agüero had hearts in mouths when heading into the side netting in the final moments, but fortunately the striker had been in an offside position anyway.
The final whistle bought with it a mixture of emotions as the relief of hanging onto the three points was soon overtaken by the realisation that the Reds had achieved something special in beating an all-conquering City side in an absolute classic.
Asked about the performance of his team at his post-match press conference, a deadpan Klopp quipped: “It was not too bad! I am really, really, really happy about it; I’ve had absolutely worse days in my life…
“I really respect the quality of the opponent, to be honest. You can see what they do. If you want, you can see Man City five times a week pretty much; you watch it, you see it and you know you have to avoid this and deny that. OK, it’s all possible but it’s quite difficult. You need a really good football team to do that and thank God I have one! It then makes sense to try it – and they tried really hard today.
“It was just a joy to watch, how both teams threw everything on the pitch. The wind made it sometimes a little bit tricky here and there – the first goal we conceded and the fourth goal they conceded, I think the influence of the wind was quite obvious in these moments.
“But then, both again tried to play football – defended really well without not a lot of half-fouls, a few tacticals, especially from City in the period when we were really on track. It’s just a nice commercial for Premier League football. The whole world was watching it and if somebody didn’t like football until now then probably they would say, ‘that’s why you watch it all the time’. I am really happy about it.”
On what type of message the result conveys, the German added: “It was simply the right statement. It’s not that I said in the meeting that I said, ‘boys, it would help a lot if you could win tonight so nobody speaks about Philippe Coutinho anymore’ because we like talking about him actually. He was probably still jumping in his new living room in Barcelona and happy about the win tonight.
“For us, it is important to show it is possible to play without him and we did that. It was a very important statement, absolutely, but that’s all – we knew before the game, we can only get three points and not more. We got them in a very important moment, so it feels good for tonight and now we have another long week to prepare for the Swansea game. So we should use that.”
Victory, coupled with Chelsea dropping points at home to Leicester City, moves Liverpool up to third in the standings, level on points with second-place Manchester United who host managerless Stoke City on Monday night.
Despite the setback, City are still 15 points above the trio and remain very much champions in waiting. Liverpool’s next outing is at Swansea City on Monday, January 22 (8.00pm GMT).
So that’s what both us and Klopp thought about the game, how about you? Let us know your views below…
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