The clashes between “The Reds” and “The Citizens” are always a great football spectacle. However, on Sunday, both teams entered the competition at Anfield Road in completely different moods. Liverpool won match after match, escaped their rivals in the Premier League, and on Wednesday they beat Real Madrid 2-0 in the Champions League. City, in turn, is in the midst of the biggest crisis in Pep Guardiola's era, before this match they lost five of the last six matches, and recently in the Champions League they drew with Feyenoord Rotterdam 3-3, even though they were leading 3-0 until the 75th minute.
City's crisis continues. Liverpool left no doubt in the hit. Guardiola couldn't stand it
This match, however, clearly confirmed the form both teams were in. Liverpool, just like on Wednesday against Real Madrid, overcame another rival from the top in the world, even if it did not translate into an extremely high result.
Even before the hosts took the lead in the 12th minute, they had two good opportunities to open the scoring. First, however, Dominik Szoboszlai's shot was saved by Stefan Ortega, and after a while the German goalkeeper was saved by the post after Virgil van Dijk's header.
But the 12th minute finally came, when Mohamed Salah played a fantastic ball between the goalkeeper and the City defenders, and Cody Gakpo shot the ball into the empty goal from close range.
After the goal to make it 1-0, Van Dijk had another chance, but again he missed the goal. The guests responded in the 39th minute with a missed shot by Rico Lewis from several meters.
After the change of sides, Liverpool continued to dominate, but they systematically spoiled subsequent good actions to increase the score. Cody Gakpo, Virgil van Dijk and, above all, Mohamed Salah had good opportunities, but that day he was unable to score a goal for The Citizens.
The hosts were wasting heavily, but in the 78th minute they finally achieved their goal. Then Luis Diaz was fouled in the penalty area by Stefan Ortega, and Mohamed Salah confidently converted the penalty into a goal, his 11th goal this Premier League season.
Manchester City could have got back into the game at the end, but Kevin de Bruyne did not take advantage of the one-on-one situation with Kelleher.
A funny situation occurred in added time. Liverpool fans sang Pep Guardiola's “You're getting sacked in the morning!” (“You will be fired in the morning!”), after which the Spaniard responded by raising six fingers – the number of league titles won in England with “The Citizens”.
Liverpool defeated Manchester City 2-0 at Anfield, thanks to which they strengthened their lead in the Premier League with 34 points in 13 rounds, with a nine-point advantage over Arsenal and Chelsea. City suffered their sixth defeat in the last seven games in all competitions and their fourth successive defeat in the Premier League. As a result, Pep Guardiola's team, with 23 points, is only fifth in the league standings and is 11 points behind the leader.