Manchester City 3-0 Liverpool: Pep Guardiola’s side up to second after superior performance against the champions
Manchester City may have the days of their best football under Pep Guardiola behind them, but it is still in many ways a happy time to be a fan, with one of the best goalscorers of all time leading their attack. Even when Erling Haaland isn’t playing well, it at times feels almost inevitable that he will score.
And neither Haaland nor City played particularly well on Sunday, which says a lot about Liverpool’s performance that they were beaten 3-0. The best player of the evening by far was Jeremy Doku, who tormented the champions’ right side. Even though they were doubling up against him, even though Conor Bradley showed enough of the spirit and verve he has displayed in the last few games, Doku was irresistible, insuperable, and he ultimately crowned an impressive performance with a highly impressive goal.
City pressed from the very early stages while Liverpool looked bewildered and out of sorts. Doku drove in from the left but fell and failed to strike the ball properly in a golden opportunity, but after a VAR review the referee gave a penalty, alleging that Giorgi Mamardashvili had fouled him. It was difficult to see where the contact was.
Haaland missed from 12 yards but he would score just before the half-hour from a corner-kick, with a header from a ball that first awkwardly glanced off Ibrahima Konate.
Liverpool remained poor but thought they had equalised 10 minutes later when Virgil van Dijk also headed in from a corner. However, the goal was ruled out for an Andy Robertson offside. The Scot was in an offside position three yards from goal but ducked as the ball went over him, and wasn’t in Gianluigi Donnarumma’s line of sight. Arne Slot was understandably furious.
Nico Gonzalez doubled City’s lead when his shot from the edge of the box took a wicked deflection off Van Dijk to wrong foot Mamardashvili. Liverpool lacked any form of intensity and had no ideas in attack, failing to get an attempt on target until way past the hour mark.
It didn’t help that Slot had started Florian Wirtz on the left ahead of the potent Cody Gakpo. The Dutchman was immediately on the end of their best chance so far when he came on in the second half, though he failed to connect cleanly with Bradley’s cross and fired sky-high when he should have scored.
The brilliant Doku sealed the game when he received the ball from Nico O’Reilly at the edge of the box, danced away from Konate and whipped a shot into the far corner. Even that third barely woke Liverpool from their slumber. A few half-hearted attempts came and went. Dominik Szoboszlai’s shot from the edge of the box was saved by Donnarumma and Mohamed Salah sent his effort one-on-one narrowly wide, but the match was over as a contest long before the final whistle.
