A lack of attention to defend a counterattack defined the tie between Manchester City and Liverpool in the great duel of English football. It was substantiated by Alexander-Arnold’s fang to move from its foreseeable location on the side to the interior. Perhaps Guardiola’s team did more to win than Klopp’s, they surely felt that they had the game dominated even within the classic lack of control of this type of competition, but in the end a draw was signed that frustrated City just when they were going to equal a record that It dates back to 1882. Since then there has not been a team in England that has won 24 consecutive victories in its stadium. That old record, held by Sunderland, was within reach for the Manchester team. “We played a great game,” Guardiola reinforced his team at the end.
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Ederson Moraes, Aké, Rúben Dias, Walker, Bernardo Silva, Manuel Akanji, Rodrigo, Julián Álvarez, Foden, Erling Braut Haaland and Jeremy Doku
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Alisson, Matip, Virgil Van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Konstantinos Tsimikas, Curtis Jones (Ryan Gravenberch, min. 54), Alexis Mac Allister (Wataru Endo, min. 84), Dominik Szoboszlai (Gakpo, min. 72), Salah , Darwin Núñez (Harvey Elliot, min. 84) and Diogo Jota (Luis Díaz, min. 54)
Goals 1-0 min. 27: Erling Braut Haaland. 1-1 min. 79: Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Referee Chris Kavanagh
Yellow cards Darwin Núñez (min. 74), Matip (min. 85), Bernardo Silva (min. 88) and Wataru Endo (min. 93)
The Catalan coach once again skated against Klopp, with whom he maintains an adverse statistic in their vibrant direct duels. He had beaten the last two, but the German strategist was victorious before twelve. Pep stays at eleven. This Saturday was the sixth tie. City must have won, as they were superior, they handled the ball longer (61%), put together more passes, finished twice as many times as their rival (16-8) and barely gave them any chances to hurt them. But Liverpool drew fruits from the value of suffering and the merit of daring. He gritted his teeth when the champion demanded of him, who had maestro Bernardo Silva at the helm, the team’s undisputed football leader.
The Portuguese pulls the strings of a team trained to attract rivals and exploit spaces. Liverpool’s essence is to go after the ball, they are not afraid of agonizing games in the open field and there a fencing was proposed in which City found themselves comfortable applying their imitated automatisms. Salah and Núñez gave him an initial scare in a connection that the Uruguayan striker was able to finish better. But the goal came first in the red area, where Allison created a couple of fires in his ball management. The second of them ended at the feet of Aké, excellent the entire game with and without the ball while star signing Gvardiol watched him from the bench. The Dutch defender traced a slalom with the ball to find Haaland between center backs and give the Norwegian striker a decisive advantage to continue nourishing his numbers: in a lukewarm start to the campaign he has scored 18 goals in 19 games in all competitions and has already reached 50 goals in just 48 games in the Premier. Andy Cole needed 65, Shearer achieved it with 66, Van Nistelrooy needed 68 and Salah or Fernando Torres, 72.
Haaland once again acted as a colossus and City settled even more into a game that turned upside down. Allison stretched on the stroke of half-time to prevent Foden from increasing the home team’s lead. At the end of the match, Klopp summarized Liverpool’s situation at that time: “In the locker room I told the boys: imagine how we would do if we were playing well.”
But Liverpool returned from the break without being able to impose their dictates, busy working on defensive aids, for example those with which they tried to stop Doku, unstoppable in one-on-one situations. Liverpool didn’t even get any air from the entry of Luis Díaz, who had just arrived from playing with the Colombian national team and from a few hard days due to the kidnapping of his father, who was present in the stands. Julián Alvarez had the sentence. Ruben Dias had a goal disallowed due to a previous foul by Akanji on the goalkeeper of the networks. Allison himself took a shot from Haaland after the umpteenth run by Doku, who finished the game with 11 dribbles executed and four scoring opportunities generated.
City won, but Liverpool hit them on the counter of that action. Few gallop like Alexandre-Arnold, who he defined as the good guys and in the celebration he put his finger on his mouth to silence the Etihad Stadium. “He was the one who made the difference,” Klopp summarized. The local response was fierce, but it was also hasty. Guardiola once again decided not to make changes. He doesn’t have plenty of options on the bench either: De Bruyne, Nunes, Kovacic and Grealish watched the game from the stands.
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