Table toppers Liverpool opened up a 9-point lead over their nearest rivals yesterday as they handed defending champions Manchester City their fourth successive defeat in the English Premier League with a 2-0 dominant win at Anfield, leaving Pep Guardiola’s men without a win in seven matches across all competitions – the worst such run of his managerial career.
For the hosts, Trent Alexander Arnold was back at his favoured right back position while Joe Gomez replaced the injured Ibrahima Konate to form the central defence pair with Virgil Van Dijk. Alexis Mac Allister was also restated in the central midfield along with Ryan Gravenberch. Luis Diaz was preferred over Darwin Nunez in the centre forward position, accompanying Mo Salah, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai in other attacking positions.
Meanwhile, the struggling champions also made some changes in their starting line-up. Goalkeeper Ederson was dropped to the bench in favour of Stefan Ortega. John Stones and Josko Gvardiol were replaced in the defence by Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake respectively while Matheus Nunes was deployed in the left wing instead of Savio.
Also read: Traffic disrupted in Delhi and Noida ahead of farmers’ ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest march
From the very beginning, Liverpool started to justify their league leadership as they started to pile up barrage of attacks on the City defence. Szoboszlai’s effort was saved by Ortega in the 11th minute and a minute later the Hungarian turned provider for Van Dijk who headed against the post. There was a sense of inevitability about the opening goal arriving and the Kop crowd became ecstatic when Salah produced a pinpoint ball across the City goal with Cody Gakpo arriving at the back post to finish it off in style.
Although, there was no further change in the score-line till referee Chris Kavanagh blew his whistle to mark the end of the first half, Liverpool literally dominated over clueless City who only managed to attempt 1 shot on goal as against Liverpool’s 10.
Even if the visitors improved their ball possession and overall play after the restart, they were still the second best as Arne Slot’s men continued to create more and more chances with Salah, Gakpo, Alexander Arnold all came close of scoring. Pep Guardiola introduced the fresh legs of Jeremy Doku, Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish to turn things around but that didn’t help much.
The decisive moment came in the 77th minute when Liverpool were awarded a spot kick after Stefan Ortega’s sliding challenge brought down Luis Diaz illegitimately inside the penalty box. Mo Salah scored the resulting penalty to put the final nail in Manchester City’s coffin. Liverpool goalie Kelleher made some smart agile saves that helped the Reds to keep their clean sheet intact till the final whistle.
In other important results of matchday 13, Chelsea (3-0) and Manchester United (4-0) earned comfortable home victories over Aston Villa and Everton respectively, while Arsenal won 5-2 on the road against West Ham United.
