Manchester City beat Liverpool 3-0 to mark Pep Guardiola’s 1000th game as a manager. This brought them within four points of Arsenal, who are in first place in the Premier League.
Erling Haaland didn’t let missing an early penalty stop him from scoring his 99th Premier League goal. Nico Gonzalez’s deflected shot and Jeremy Doku’s amazing goal secured City’s place as Arsenal’s main title opponents.
Liverpool has lost four of their previous five league games, which puts the defending champions in ninth place, eight points behind the leaders, according to AFP.
Arsenal’s 10-game winning streak came to an end on Saturday as they drew 2-2 with Sunderland. Guardiola’s team took full advantage in the fight of the two teams that have dominated the Premier League for the past ten years.
This was another sign of how far Arne Slot’s team has fallen since they easily beat Manchester City 2-0 at the Etihad in February, even if the decisions went against them.
The Reds seemed to be getting better after beating Aston Villa and Real Madrid in the last eight days, but they couldn’t handle the smoothness of a City team that has won 11 of its last 14 games in all competitions.
On Tuesday, Conor Bradley stopped Madrid’s Vinicius Junior from becoming a threat, but Doku’s speed and skill on City’s left side gave him a lot of trouble.
Doku took advantage of Ibrahima Konate’s clearing off Bradley to go around Giorgi Mamardashvili, but the Georgian pinched his trailing leg.
At first, referee Chris Kavanagh didn’t change his mind, but following a VAR review, he pointed to the spot.
Haaland has scored 28 goals for his club and country this season, but he hasn’t scored a penalty for City yet.
Mamardashvili made up for his mistake by diving to his left to save the Norwegian’s penalty. This briefly lifted the spirits of the Liverpool players and fans who had traveled to the game.
City still had control of the game, though, when Rayan Cherki’s shot went wide and Mamardashvili turned Doku’s shot into the side-netting after another long run.
Haaland has only missed scoring in two of his 18 games this season. He scored with a looping header to meet Matheus Nunes’ vicious pass on the 29th minute.
Nine minutes later, Liverpool felt they were even when Van Dijk’s corner header went straight into the far corner.
But Andy Robertson slid out of the path of his captain’s shot and was thought to have gotten in Gianluigi Donnarumma’s way from an offside position.
City didn’t just go in all square; they made Liverpool’s perceived injustice worse.
The visitors took a long time to get out of a corner, which gave Gonzalez time to shoot before his shot hit Van Dijk and sent Mamardashvili the wrong way.
Liverpool could only blame themselves for not coming back into the game early in the second half. Cody Gakpo shot over the net after a great play by Mohamed Salah and Bradley.
But Doku finished off what was perhaps his best game in three seasons at City in style to earn a big win.
The Belgian jinked inside the leaden-footed Konate and then curled the ball into the top corner from outside the box.
Salah’s miss of a great chance 10 minutes from the end summed up Liverpool’s day and season so far.
Slot left £125 million ($165 million) striker Alexander Isak on the bench for the whole game since he wasn’t fit enough to play.
The choice to break apart the team that won the title with a transfer window spend of around £450 million seems even more wrong now that Liverpool is fighting just to get into the top four instead of the title race.
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