Manchester City\u2019s 2\u20131 win at Anfield on Sunday summed up a match of high drama and clear deficiencies from two teams that have dominated recent title races. \u201cIt was a brilliant advert for the Premier League,\u201d a breathless Pep Guardiola said after his side came from behind to claim victory.<\/p>\n
Dominik Szoboszlai opened the scoring as Liverpool improved after the break, only for Bernardo Silva to level in the 84th minute before Erling Haaland converted the decisive penalty. The result gave Guardiola his first win away at Liverpool with fans and saw Haaland net his first Premier League goal at Anfield, while narrowing the gap to Arsenal to six points.<\/p>\n
Yet the contest exposed lasting problems. The Reds shipped goals number 34 and 35 of the season, a sharp contrast to last year\u2019s title-winning tally of 32. The balance between attack and defence remains elusive; as Rafael Ben\u00edtez once put it, \u201cIf you cover your head, you have your feet cold, but if you cover your feet, you have your head cold.\u201d Slot\u2019s side were punished for a slow start and still conceded 17 shots, seven on target.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s recent personnel changes were referenced in the match narrative. After dropping Mohamed Salah in the autumn and tightening up, the club shifted back toward a more open approach on Salah\u2019s return. That swing was evident in their recent 3\u20132 defeat to Bournemouth and in Sunday\u2019s encounter. Ryan Gravenberch admitted the visitors were \u201cway better\u201d in the opening 45 minutes.<\/p>\n
City, too, showed inconsistency. Guardiola acknowledged the pattern: \u201cIt has happened many times,\u201d and warned, \u201cWe are not consistent over 90 minutes, but we try to grow.\u201d He praised Bernardo\u2019s influence: \u201cBelief from our captain,\u201d and added the manager\u2019s fuller appraisal: \u201cHe is one of the best players I have every trained with.\u201d \u201cHe is the perfect captain. It is a joy for me as a manager to have him. The team comes first. His contribution is massive and he is one of the legends of this club.\u201d<\/p>\n
With 13 games remaining, Liverpool find themselves four points adrift of Champions League qualification and five behind Manchester United. Both sides can draw positives from Anfield, but the performance underlined that neither has solved the persistent problems undermining a title charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
City’s late comeback at Anfield exposed flaws on both sides, narrowed Arsenal’s lead and questions..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1056,969],"tags":[355,801,988],"class_list":["post-6651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-man-city","category-premier-league","tag-alisson-becker","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-bernardo-silva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}