The uniqueness of this season, and the inconsistency that haunts almost every Premier League, erodes the suspicion of previous seasons that the results in this fixture would ultimately decide the destination of the title. But it remains a significant marker.
We examine five questions that may decide the biggest game of the season so far…
Jota or Firmino?
On the numbers alone, there is no argument. Diogo Jota has scored as many goals in his last four Liverpool appearances as Roberto Firmino has in his last 35. After his hat-trick against Atalanta in midweek, a game in which, perhaps crucially, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane also scored, Jota claimed that he was playing the best football of his career. It would be a huge risk to pass up the opportunity for this purple patch to continue.
And yet Klopp may well still favour Firmino in such a momentous fixture. He repeatedly makes the point of praising the Brazilian for his work off the ball in pressing opponents and creating chances for his teammates, even when he doesn’t score. On both of those measures, Firmino is ahead.
Klopp might reason that Jota is the most logical option against teams who sit deep and invite Liverpool to break them down, but that Firmino remains the best fit against a team with historic defensive frailties who Klopp believes can be harried into making mistakes with a high-intensity press.
Can Liverpool make a blistering start?
One of the key elements of Liverpool’s title romp last season was their quick starts. No team in the league scored more goals in the first 10 minutes of their matches. That has also been a theme of their recent success in this fixture. Think of Fabinho’s opener after six minutes last season, Mohamed Salah’s after 12 minutes in April 2018 and Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain’s after nine minutes in the January of that year. Liverpool won all three of those games.
But Liverpool have lost that knack of late. They have conceded the first goal in four of their last five league matches having done so four times in their previous 29. Against West Ham and Sheffield United – their last two league fixtures – their opponents have taken the lead before the 15-minute mark.
Klopp will hardly be panicked by that pattern, not least because Liverpool have actually won three of those four fixtures (Aston Villa being the exception). But he will stress to his team the importance of beginning Sunday’s game at a sprint and overpowering Manchester City with their early press.
Will Manchester City learn to finish their dinner?
There is a clear pattern to each Manchester City defeat: They enjoy long spells of possession and territory, but undo their good work with defensive calamity, a frustrating drop in intensity or, more regularly, fail to fully take advantage of their periods of dominance.
City rank second in the Premier League for shots taken this season but they rank 17th for their conversion of shots into goals, ahead of only Burnley, Sheffield United and Fulham. Pep Guardiola will hope that the return to fitness of Gabriel Jesus will give them a focal point up front, but his own finishing has often been inconsistent. Against Liverpool, they cannot afford to squander any dominance earned further towards their own goal.
Who starts at left-back for City?
With Benjamin Mendy missing the last four games and out on Sunday through injury, Guardiola has rotated between Oleksandr Zinchenko and Joao Cancelo at left-back. Cancelo has played two Premier League games, Zinchenko in the Champions League.
With whoever starts on Sunday certain to be tested by Salah, it seems likely that Guardiola will change from Olympiakos and opt for Cancelo’s defensive resilience, albeit out of his natural position.
However, the more attacking option would be to play Zinchenko and allow him to push high up the pitch in an attempt to pin back Trent Alexander-Arnold and stop him delivering the crosses and crossfield passes that are so crucial to Liverpool’s attacking plan.
Will City’s new central defensive partnership hold firm?
Guardiola has spent a king’s ransom on his defence in an attempt to eradicate the issues that dismantled their title defence last season. In Ruben Dias, he might just have his best – and most expensive – option yet.
Dias and Aymeric Laporte have only started three games together due to Laporte’s fitness issues, so this is a minute sample size. But City have conceded just one goal in those games and faced only three shots on target in total against Sheffield United and Marseille combined.
Now comes the acid test. If Dias and Laporte are able to thwart Liverpool’s roaming, dipping, darting front three without being dragged out of position to leave holes or robbed of possession by the pressure applied on them, we must consider City as title favourites. It’s a big “if”.
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