Second-half goals from Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish helped Manchester City beat Liverpool and sent a strong message to Arsenal in the Premier League title race.
With Erling Haaland out with a groin problem, Mohamed Salah added to the fear at the Etihad Stadium with the 17th-minute opener but City’s response was great.
Grealish’s brilliance at both ends of the field allowed Julian Alvarez to equalize from close range before the break. And after eight minutes of the second half, the game was over. De Bruyne put them ahead after great work from Alvarez and Riyad Mahrez before that duo beat Gundogan in a three-pointer. Grealish sealed things as Liverpool withered.
The Athletic’s Oliver Kay, Sam Lee and Liam Tharme analyzed the action.
Alvarez seizes the chance to shine in Haaland’s absence
“The most important thing is to cut off the passing opportunities between the lines,” said Klopp when asked before the game whether you need a different game plan for defending against Alvarez than against Erling Haaland.
Liverpool mostly managed that in a compact 4-4-2, but Alvarez showed quality to receive from the back three and play one-touch passes to No.10 De Bruyne and Gundogan. City continued their typical three-box-three form, with John Stones in defensive midfield alongside Rodri and Alvarez, flanked by Grealish and Riyad Mahrez.
That was important in gaining access to the No 10s as Liverpool’s defensive form blocked direct passes into them.
Alvarez played a direct role in all three of City’s goals, leveling by exploiting Grealish’s cutback from the left.
His first action after half-time was a big move to Mahrez, who found De Bruyne to put City ahead. The third goal embodied the game of Alvarez – more of a conventional Guardiola No.9 than Haaland’s ability to play in tight quarters. He came up short on the edge of the box against a low block, played a clean one-two with Stones and then stopped his run into the box for the cutback, Gundogan rebounding on Alvarez’s blocked shot.
Liam Tharme
Grealish now seems at home in Guardiola’s squad
Apparently everyone was looking at Grealish this time last year and wondering what exactly he could bring to City. Now we have an answer.
Tactical discipline, defensive work rate and the ability to attract two or three players seemed to matter more to anyone than Guardiola, but it’s impossible to ignore Grealish’s good work now.
And not to mention the goals and assists, which are flowing quite nicely at the moment; Running back to parry a counterattack from a set piece will always earn you the admiration of the football public, especially in the UK. He did that against Tottenham a couple of months ago, thwarting a break with a textbook sliding tackle and he returned there to stop Liverpool 2-0 with a crucial interception.
Exactly 60 seconds later, he was in exactly the right place to deliver Alvarez exactly the right pass to equalize.
He feels right at home with this team now and you don’t have to dig too deep to justify that view.
When he scored the fourth goal, it was the least he deserved.
Sam Lee
A season marked by defensive mistakes
It would be easy for Klopp to dismiss this – far more so than some of Liverpool’s other defeats this season – as a simple case of them being outmaneuvered by a brilliant side, and indeed there were periods when they were with and without the ball almost exactly as he would have liked.
But there were moments when their defense just wasn’t good enough. What seemed like little things – Andy Robertson being dragged into a fight against De Bruyne leading up to City’s first goal, leaving Mahrez behind in space, or Jordan Henderson losing sight of De Bruyne on the halfway line in the build-up. to the second – leaving Liverpool’s entire defense virtually unprotected. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk were both too casual for fourth place.
That was the story of their season: individual mistakes compounding a collective malaise, or is it the other way around? For so much of Klopp’s tenure, the enthusiasm and intensity of this Liverpool team was contagious. This season it’s mistakes that were allowed to spread.
Oliver Kai
City in ominous form – again at the right time
Three home games in a row, three poses. It’s the business end of the season, City are clicking and the fans are enjoying themselves.
Look, Arsenal are still top, there’s work to be done and maybe they just won’t let City overtake them.
However, City look ready to do whatever it takes to fight all the way and that’s especially important considering just a few months ago Guardiola said he didn’t care what happened, he just wanted his team to look like they cared.
You take good care. There has been a difficult period in the new year, which is more or less the reason behind Arsenal’s point deficit, but they are now playing their best football of the season by far.
Sure, the last three games – RB Leipzig, Burnley, Liverpool – have all been much more open transitional affairs than City’s usual fixtures. So how they transfer that energy to games when the opposition dig deep and limit spaces is something of an unknown, but how they tore their opponents apart cannot be underestimated.
Arsenal may go all the way alone, but City won’t make it easy for them.
Sam Lee
Liverpool don’t lose the lead often
Even in a season in which Liverpool kept collapsing, the one part of their identity that was still there at kick-off was the opportunity to see wins.
That record was shattered in 30 minutes of the second half as Liverpool lost a Premier League game in which they scored the opener away to Leicester City for the first time since February 2021.
Salah ripples in the opener for Liverpool (Picture: PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Klopp’s side had won 33 of their last 36 games when they took the lead, a record dating back to early August 2021, leaving Brentford (first goal in 24 games, wins 19, five draws, none lost) as the only unbeaten team out Winning positions in the last two seasons.
In the 70th minute, Liverpool had more offsides (five) than shots (four). Their sit-back-and-counter approach was ineffective and they mostly had poor timing and poor execution of passes. They were too passive and City too perceptive.
The game might have gone differently had Salah made more of the counter-attack from a City corner with the lead at 1-0, but Grealish bounced back, summing up Liverpool’s season, which is likely to be their worst when Klopp is in charge ( except 2015). -16 when he joined halfway).
Liam Tharme
Klopp needs support this summer – their squad looks stale
In the second half of last season, with these two sides fighting to the max in the Premier League title race, it could be argued that Liverpool had the stronger squad. City operated with a core of 17 outfield players while Liverpool had 22, no doubt contributing to their quest for success on four fronts.
Now? Barely. Liverpool might look stronger numerically, but squad strength has become an illusion. How many of their eleven midfielders does Klopp trust to play a game of this magnitude in 2023?
Klopp’s quadruple substitutions at 3-1 – Kostas Tsimikas, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Roberto Firmino and Darwin Nunez for Robertson, Harvey Elliott, Diogo Jota and Salah – didn’t look like the act of a manager who believed he had the resources to claw back control of the game. James Milner’s introduction to the closing stages was about damage control.
In contrast, even with Phil Foden and Haaland out, City were able to keep Kyle Walker and Aymeric Laporte on the bench throughout and limit Bernardo Silva to a late cameo. There are still slight doubts about City’s depth at certain positions but they have invested in a way that has kept their roster fresh and quality levels high.
Liverpool have tackled certain positions in recent transfer windows but they haven’t done enough to rebuild from a position of strength and now their squad looks stale. You have a big and challenging summer ahead of you.
Oliver Kai
(Top Photo: Manchester City FC/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)