Manchester City beat Liverpool 3-0 at the Etihad Stadium to move into second place.
Erling Haaland scored his 99th Premier League goal, scoring an early penalty that was saved by Giorgi Mamadashvili to put City ahead. Slot’s teams proved unable to match Jeremy Doku’s energy as he tormented Liverpool’s defense for long periods of time.
Slott may point to Virgil van Dijk’s equalizer, which was controversially ruled out due to Andrew Robertson being in an offside position at the time, but Nico Gonzalez’s deflected shot in first-half stoppage time was a better reflection of City’s dominance.
Doc’s sensational strike ended Josep Guardiola’s hopes of returning to Liverpool in his 1,000th game as manager, but the Belgian winger was outstanding from in front of goal. His performance on the live wire was in stark contrast to his opponent.
With these three points, City have moved up to second place, ahead of Chelsea, and are now four points behind leaders Arsenal, who drew with Sunderland. Based on this evidence, the Gunners’ biggest challenger is City, not the reigning champions.
Doc showed Haaland wasn’t alone.
One interesting statistic from this contest was that Manchester City’s second highest scorer in the Premier League this season was Burnley’s Maxime Esteve. This was the result of two unlucky own goals in Manchester City’s 5-1 win in late September.
The statistic remains as Nico and Doc’s goals were the first in the competition this season, but City’s all-round performance, and Doc’s in particular, reminded them that they have more than Haaland.
The livewire winger was responsible for many of Guardiola’s side’s strengths in this showdown with their long-time rivals. He was unstoppable, whether he found a yard of space when Liverpool were in a low block or darted into space.
City have picked up the most points of any Premier League team since April, and Mikel Arteta and Arsenal are unlikely to lose that with Guardiola’s side on their shoulders. Reports of their deaths may have been greatly exaggerated.
Liverpool’s resurgence unravels at City
It was a punishing experience for a Liverpool team who may have believed they were returning to their best following wins over Aston Villa and Real Madrid. Here they were unable to match the energy of Manchester City, who dominated from the start.
Given that Slott has said managing multiple games each week is a problem for some players, it’s perhaps surprising that he chose to stick with the same starting lineup rather than shake things up. Will he regret that call now?
Florian Wirtz continues to look decent without having the impact on the game that you would expect from a player of his price, while Hugo Ekitike has been silent and Mohamed Salah continues to struggle to maintain his form. Rear sluggishness was once again evident.
There were some controversial decisions against Liverpool, but this was not an odd-goal defeat like the last four Premier League games. It was emphasized. It was their seventh upset in 10 games in all competitions, dropping the reigning champions to 8th place.
Slott laments the disallowed goal
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Following Virgil van Dijk’s canceled goal against Manchester City, Arne Slott compared it to John Stones’ goal against Wolves last season, with both matches refereed by Chris Kavanagh.
Liverpool head coach Arne Slott told Sky Sports.
“I think it’s clear and obvious that the wrong decision was made, at least in my opinion, because he (Robertson) didn’t interfere in any way with what the goalkeeper could do.”
“Immediately after the game, someone showed me the goal the same referee had conceded to City against Wolves last season (John Stones’ last-minute winner), so it took 13 seconds for the linesman to raise the flag saying it was offside, so there was clearly some communication.”
Bernardo Silva leans on Jose Sa before John Stones’ winner at Molineux last season
“We were so bad in the first half that it might have had a positive impact on the game.
“We would have been lucky if we were down 1-0 at half-time, much less 1-1 or 2-1. So it was an influential decision. You can’t predict how the second half will go, so it’s not like the result would have been here at the time.”
