ANFIELD — A breathtaking, throbbing game between the best two teams in the country. A match that provoked four or five different intros and led to none of them being used.
Proof that Manchester City are flawed without a No 9 or brilliant because they have so many options.
Proof that Liverpool’s togetherness is their greatest asset or that the individual magnificence of Mo Salah makes them the likeliest champions.
Good luck if you can pick any less than two of those apparently conflicting conclusions.
This is English football’s new fierce rivalry, forged not through deep history or even geography (although that clearly plays a part) but recent success. Between them, Liverpool and Manchester City have won the last four league titles and the winner of these fixtures this season will consider themselves favourites again. Manchester United’s slump has allowed these two to wrestle to be kings of the north at a time when that honour allows you to rule England.
Manchester City’s bus was welcomed with boos and expressive gestures, Liverpool’s with red flares and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. On both sides of the mesh barrier between home and away supporters, two bald-headed men flicked the Vs at each other with increasing fury as if playing out a Rock, Paper, Scissors draw to the death. We’ll say it again: these two clubs don’t like each other much. That only gives the fixture an added fizz, a prickly mood that occasionally bubbles over. That is usually when football is at its best.
In February, Manchester City’s domination of this match was explained by Liverpool’s absentees at centre-back, with Fabinho and Jordan Henderson starting as a central defensive partnership. On Sunday, it was a missing right-back that determined the pattern of the match. In the absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, James Milner filled in at right-back.
Milner was beaten on the inside out, highly fortunate not to be penalised for a foul on the edge of the box and booked for an uncompromising rugby tackle. He was beaten when rushing out to meet Foden and when sitting back to wait for him. He lost his man for Manchester City’s first equaliser and was incredibly lucky not to be sent off before their second. That came after the mercy solution.
At the highest level, when system manager meets system manager and aims to impose their philosophies on the other, it only takes one glaring weakness to shift the whole run of the game. Manchester City struggled to pass around Liverpool’s press in the first 10 minutes, but then they identified the space in behind Milner. Alexander-Arnold is not a perfect defensive right-back, but he does have the recovery pace to mask any lapses.
It became not just a mini game within the game, but the battle that would define it. Could Manchester City take the chances that were provoked by Foden constantly finding space? No. He was guilty of missing a one-on-one when Bernardo Silva had slalomed Georgi Kinkladze-style through Liverpool’s half. Crosses repeatedly flashed across the goal and shots from wide tended to end the same way.
But then Salah happened. If the criticism of Manchester City is that they lack a truly ruthless centre-forward, Liverpool are proof that one out wide will do. Liverpool had been penned in their own half for long periods, suffocated by Manchester City’s possession and their own inability to pass their way through the lines. But when you have Salah you have a chance. It took seven seconds between him receiving possession from Fabinho and Sadio Mane slipping the ball past Ederson. In that time, Salah had made two players look silly and his team look better than they deserved to.
Pick your favourite element of one of the most sensational individual Premier League goals to give Liverpool a lead for the second time. Was it the initial skill, rolling his studs over the ball to send Bernardo Silva to the floor as if he had slipped on an icy hill? Was it the second dummy, shifting the ball to his right foot because he knew that Manchester City’s defenders would expect him to shoot on his left? Or was it the outrageous finish on his right foot, somehow directed with power and enough shape to take it beyond Ederson’s fingertips.
After City equalised for a second time, they again squeezed the game and looked the likeliest winner. Pep Guardiola will point to the lack of red card for Milner and his team having double Liverpool’s number of shots and insist that one point should have been three; maybe he’s right. But then this felt a fitting end result. Manchester City are a brilliant team that lacks that last ruthless edge. Liverpool are a squad that lacks the depth to account for absentees, but has the ruthlessness in the final third that can overshadow any serious doubts about their title credentials. If we must conclude one thing, let it be this: this will be a thrilling title race.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3itZvxh
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