After back-to-back wins against Aston Villa and Real Madrid, it seems Liverpool are back in business. But the defending champions have been humiliated as Manchester City destroyed them at Etihad Stadium, where the Citizens defeated Liverpool by a 3-0 margin. It is Liverpool’s 5th defeat of the season in the English Premier League, which moved them to 8th in the standings with 18 points from the first 11 games. Meanwhile, Manchester City have moved to 2nd after the win and are only four points away from the top.
Match Report
Manchester City had a great chance to take an early lead as they were awarded a penalty kick in just 13 minutes of the match. However, goal-machine Erling Haaland missed the opportunity as Giorgi Mamardashvili made a brilliant save to deny Haaland. Man City, yet, remained very consistent and continuously pressed Liverpool.
Finally, the moment came for Haaland as he broke the deadlock in the 30th minute with a brilliant header. Nine minutes later, the visitors got a golden opportunity as Virgil Van Dijk leveled the scoreline. But VAR cancelled the goal due to an offside. Man City, then, took control of the game just before the break. This time, Nico Gonzalez doubled the lead with the help of Bernardo Silva in the injury time of the first half.
Liverpool tried their best to get back into the game after the break. But they failed to break Man City’s defense. On the other hand, Man City killed the game when Jeremy Doku scored the 3rd goal of the match in the 63rd minute. The match went out of Liverpool’s hands after the third goal, and Man City secured a dominating 3-0 win over Liverpool.
City boss Pep Guardiola shared his thoughts on winning the match. He said, “The team has a good vibe. We had energy. We lost energy last season, I don’t know why. We were not like this team has been for many years. We lost players but we tried to push each other and we were not able to do it. I have the feeling it’s back and we can play in different ways now. That’s good for us but not for the opponents. They don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Arne Slot, manager of Liverpool, said, “Of course, everyone is disappointed. It was a very good start to the week, winning against [Aston] Villa and Real Madrid, but if you thought you already faced two strong opponents then Man City comes across, away at the Etihad. That is, for every team, difficult, including for us. They were by far the much better side in the first half.”
