Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool was a perfect football-playing machine. The German dazzled all of Europe with a brave and colorful style of play, and once he completed his cycle in the Merseyside city, he himself passed the baton to Arne Slot. Jürgen knew what he was doing, since the Dutch technician has transformed his famous ‘rock & roll’ into ‘heavy metal’. Without losing the essence of the old ‘Pool’, Slot has shown – once again – against Manchester City that this team is determined to win everything. More verticality, first-touch plays or unappealable counterattacks. There is nothing they fail at.
The bad moment of Guardiola’s team both in terms of play and results cannot serve as an excuse to ignore the fact that Liverpool is the best team in Europe right now. Real Madrid, Milan, City, Leverkusen… they have all danced to the rhythm of Slot’s music. Anfield is a fortress, and with 2-0 against the Citizens, Liverpool is the leader – nine behind Arsenal.
Manchester City, for its part, is already eleven points behind the lead, occupying fifth position. There are now seven games without a win, of which six have been defeats. More than a crisis, we can begin to talk about reality in the team led by Pep Guardiola. Many injuries, little identity in the game… the situation is very worrying.
From video game.
The Liverpool game gave rise to thinking that Slot was directing his players by remote control. The most positive thing for Guardiola and his team at the break was the result. Van Dijk headed against the post, another shot from Alexander-Arnold skimmed the post, and the ten shots to one that the statistics indicated was the clearest evidence of what had been seen on the pitch.
‘On fire’
Cody Gakpo is sweet. The Dutch winger was in charge of opening the scoring in the 12th minute of the game, which means his seventh goal in the last nine games. He already scored against Real Madrid in a match of vital importance in the Champions League, and today he did the same in another very important duel against the ‘citizens’. Salah put the finishing touch, although in his case he lives in a state of flow. There are already 11 goals and seven assists in 13 Premier League games for the Egyptian.
Guardiola, during the duel against Liverpool.EFE
To cover up.
The City thing is worthy of study. Beyond the bad results, the ‘citizen’ team is not even a shadow of what it has been showing in recent seasons. The players are not on the field, and a clear example is that of Matheus Nunes. The Portuguese midfielder was seen as a midfielder, as a left winger, and even as a center back at certain moments of the match. Not to mention Haaland, who is an island in the middle of nowhere to which hardly any balls reach.
The anger.
Last Wednesday, City experienced the umpteenth nightmare of the season when they saw Feyenoord come back from 3-0 down at the Etihad Stadium to end up signing a historic draw. The big culprit of this was Ederson, with two gross errors, which led Ortega to occupy the goal against Liverpool due to a technical decision by Guardiola. The face of the Brazilian goalkeeper from the bench was one of very few friends.
The data.
Beyond the three points, the victory means a lot to Liverpool for several reasons. One of them is that the ‘Pool’ had not won a game against City for more than two years. Another important fact is that the ‘citizen’ team had won five of their last six games against a Premier League leader. Curiously, the only one they had lost was against Liverpool, in the same year in which the Merseyside club became champion. Slot and his people have reasons to rejoice.
To not see it.
The data for the visiting team in a duel between Liverpool and Manchester City are worrying. Of the 54 times they have faced each other, only six times has the team that played away from home won. In the case of the team led by Pep Guardiola, the statistics are overwhelming, since since 2003 they have only won once at Anfield, in 2021 -without people in the stadium due to Covid-.