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Manchester City thrashed title rivals Liverpool 3-0 in Pep Guardiola's 1000th match as manager today.
City's Erling Haaland saw a penalty saved before he nodded home Matheus Nunes’ cross at the Etihad.
Virgil van Dijk’s header was contentiously disallowed before Nico scored and Jeremy Doku curled in a stunner.
City are now in second place, four points behind league leaders Arsenal, with Liverpool eighth.
GO FURTHER
Man City 3 Liverpool 0: Should Van Dijk header have stood? Why was Doku so dangerous? Is entertainment back?
Saturday, November 22: Nottingham Forest (Home), Premier League, 3pm UK, 10am ET
Two crucial home matches follow for Liverpool in a little less than a fortnight, after the international break.
Arne Slot's side host lowly Nottingham Forest before taking on PSV in the Champions League four days afterwards.
This is the last Premier League match before the international break and it is easy to feel that it has come at a good time for Liverpool.
The break will give Arne Slot time to return to the drawing board and assess his team, their shape and how they plan to reel in the gap on Arsenal.
This team is capable and very talented — he has a small window to find the answers and put a difficult month behind them.
Nothing is done and dusted until someone gets their hands on the Premier League trophy but have weseen the title race narrow to two clubs after this result?
Just maybe, as City piled on the pressure to keep pace with league leaders Arsenal.
If they can stay within touching distance into the new year, it creates a fun and pressured chase.
Today, Manchester City ended a four-game winless run against Liverpool in the Premier League (two draws, two defeats), beating them for the first time since April 2023 (4-1).
It was City's first clean sheet against them in 14 meetings across all competitions.
Check out our visual breakdown of Jeremy Doku's man-of-the-match showing.
Doku made 11 progressive carries, the most of any player on the pitch, had five involvements in attacking sequences and 27 total carries (second-most in the match) and three progressive passes (third-most).
An impressive all-round showing.
Liverpool have lost five of their 11 matches in the Premier League this season (six wins), the most defeats by a reigning champion at this stage of a campaign since Leicester in 2016-17 (five).
Only Chelsea in 2015-16 (also six) have ever lost more after 11 games of a Premier League season as reigning champions.
Liverpool have now lost four consecutive Premier League away games for the first time since April 2012 under Kenny Dalglish (four).
Those four defeats in succession are now more than Liverpool suffered in their first 21 away league games under Arne Slot combined (13 wins, five draws, three losses.
Thanks to Opta for those stats.
This was the first time since July 2020 that Mohamed Salah has started a Premier League match against Manchester City and failed to either score or assist.
That ended a run of nine straight league starts against City in which he had been directly involved in a goal for Liverpool (seven goals, five assists).
It was a good day all round for the City boss. Here’s how he reflected on that match when speaking to Sky Sports:
💬 “They gave me a present, the players with this performance against the champions. We had to give a good performance defensively.
“The players gave a performance on the highest level all of them. Really pleased for it all.
“Defensively was really good, stopped the threat in behind from Mo Salah, Ekitike and Szoboszlai.
“In the beginning, the vibe from our fans was incredible. Playing at home and winning is great before the international break.”
As you would imagine, Arne Slot sees this result as a bump in the road rather than proof that his team are not capable of winning the title this season. Here’s what he had to say on reeling Arsenal in, talking to Sky Sports:
💬 “It’s been a very good start of the week with a very bad end of the week. City away is difficult for everyone. We won here last year because we scored a set piece and then had to defend really hard.
“Today I don’t think it was ever going to be our game. We need to improve. I didn’t need this game to know this. Last season, when we were eight points clear it never felt like we were done already.
“The performance needs to be better but this week gave me a lot of positives to take into the games after the international break. In moments like this you could only focus on the negatives but there are lots of positives as well.”
As you can see from our snazzy match dashboard above, City were the better side.
They created an expected goals total (xG) of 1.6, more than double that of Liverpool's 0.7 xG.
His 1000th match as a manager and a very satisfying win.
It is no wonder the fans were singing his name at the end of the match!
It was the 716th victory of his coaching career and his 388th with City.
This is the angle on Virgil van Dijk’s headed goal, which was ruled out due to Andy Robertson (pictured left of Donnarumma here) being offside and obstructing the City goalkeeper.
Would he have made the save even if Robertson were not there?
Van Dijk’s header was so well placed, it seems unlikely.
Below, The Athletic's Jordan Campbell, Andy Jones and Michael Cox break down the action from the Etihad. Enjoy.
GO FURTHER
Man City 3 Liverpool 0: Should Van Dijk header have stood? Why was Doku so dangerous? Is entertainment back?
It was the big talking point of the half when Liverpool’s goal was ruled out by VAR — here’s Arne Slot’s view on what he saw, speaking to Sky Sports:
💬 “It’s difficult for me to give my view but it’s obvious that the wrong decision has been made. He didn’t interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do.
“The same referee allowed the same type of goal for City against Wolves last season. It took the linesman 13 seconds to raise his flag to say it is offside so it is clear there was communication.
“That could have influenced the game in a positive way for us in the first half because we were so poor.”
It was a disappointing day for the Liverpool manager and his team. Here’s how he reflected on that one when asked by Sky Sports:
💬 “Very difficult first half for us. They were pressing us really high, were very good in ball possession and it was a hard first half.
“You are hoping you can get to the end of the first half 1-0 down. Then of course, there are five to ten minutes that are influential to the game.
“Second half I saw a much better performance than in the first half.”
Manchester City have been undergoing something of a transition period in the past year, so have they finally found their groove with a mix of established club legends and new faces? Ruben Dias thinks so, as he told Sky Sports:
💬 “We live for games like this and there’s no higher level than these kind of games. I am very happy for him (Doku) and for everyone.
“I remember before I came to this club and watching them on TV, it's the details of this club and everyone being willing to sacrifice for each other.
“This is not new. This has been going on for a while now. We have been talking about a rebuild for a while now, which is part of the process for any team that wants to keep on winning.
“There are new faces because of the ones that left but the quality stays the same and we keep on pushing. It’s early in the season and we keep on pushing.”
Exactly the kind of individual performance and team result that Jeremy Doku would have wanted on the landmark occasion of his 100th Manchester City appearance in all competitions.
The kind of end product he displayed today offers plenty of encouragement for the next century!
He was the clear winner of the man of the match award today, so let’s see what the Manchester City winger had to say when speaking to Sky Sports:
💬 “In big games, it is always more beautiful. I am happy with the game and the performance of the team today.
“It’s good for the confidence. I have great players around me that push me every day because they believe in me. That gives me the feeling that I have to do more every game.”
On top of everything else that Liverpool had to handle today, it is safe to say that VAR was not their friend.
First with the awarding of the penalty for Mamardashvili’s challenge on Doku, which he saved, then with Virgil van Dijk’s goal being ruled offside.
The second was a harsh call and will be debated long into the night.
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