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Key events
Half-time: Liverpool 1-0 Manchester City
City will be glad that’s over. Liverpool wanted more, much more. And remain capable of doing so. Liverpool did ebb as time has gone on. What can Pep conjure? This will have to be the team talk of a lifetime.
45_+1 min: Three minutes added on. Pep and Juanma are deep in discussion.
44 min: Salah hurt? Looks like he was stood on. The referee take no notice.Salahj gets up and is the target of a pass out to the wing.
43 min: City doing their best to calm the storm. Much more patient, better shape, Ortega ends up playing a pass to nobody. Liverpool can resume.
41 min: Applause as Liverpool play some Slot-ball. They only just fail to play in Diaz.
39 min: City’s first shot? Robertson lets in Lewis and the ball is jabbed wide. Still. City are better at the moment. Much betterl.
38 min: A penalty claim? Nope. Diaz had fallen to the surface rather too easily.
37 min: Pep is pacing. His team attempt to work a set piece and Bernardo Silva can only lump the ball at Kelleher…that’s poor.
35 min: Gakpo barrels to the byline, but cannot find a teammate. City clear, and Gravenberch is booked for legging up Gundogan. Haaland was the next and willing recipient.
34 min: Close again! Mac Allister’s corner is headed out, and Trent has yet another dig. It’s something of a scuff but comes off the bottom of the post.
32 min: After the heavy metal thunder, back to the jazz rock. Though Foden shows punkish energy in pulling back Gravenberch. He’s booked for a shirt pull.
31 min: Szoboszlai plays in Trent, whose wallop at goal hits the first man.
30 min: City finding the angles and seeing the pictures at last. Liverpool having to chase. Like old times? That City defence still looks wobbly.
28 min: Haaland is ordering his teammates to get in shape as Liverpool get the ball. A new leader emerging?
26 min: Gravenberch fouls Foden when Nunes was expectant. No yellow, when it might have been. City have a head of steam up, and are in possession, suddenly looking more comfortable.
25 min: Are City finding their feet?…Anfield sounds anxious.
24 min: Lewis and Walker get in a terrible tangle. City clear and Nunes gets the sixth touch in the Liverpool final third. He then loses the ball and concedes a foul and a yellow. That too was sloppy.
23 min: Touches in final third 45-5. Can anyone remember the five from City?
22 min: Another corner. Alexander-Arnold takes from the left. More chaos, as cleared by Haaland in the end.
19 min: Close! Again! Trent on a weaving run leaves the ball to Gakpo and he smashes over. Arne Slot agonises.
18 min: Trent Alexander-Arnold lasers in a ball for Salah to chase and a corner is conceded. From that, Mac Allister takes and Van Dijk heads down and just wide.
So that’s Salah and Van Dijk at corners they are not marking?
17 min: AA BB gets in touch: “Interesting that after winning the toss, pep chooses to switch sides from the traditional. I’ve seen that a handful of times at anfield in massive games, Jose did it in that monumental 2005 CL tie. They want to get the kop out of the way asap.”
City did it in the 2013-14 game, as won by Coutinho (!?). The famous ”this does not slip” game. David Silva attacking the Kop was just amazing.
15 min: That was just brilliant from Salah, to open the floodgates. Foden will be OK to continue. But will his teammates?
14 min: City look beaten already. And worse, Phil Foden takes a knock after Gravenberch runs into the back of him. He looks in pain. There’s discussions in the City team. Guardiola, well, all he can do is clap.
Goal! Liverpool 1-0 Manchester City (Gakpo, 12)
Too easy, out to Salah, and his ball is a beauty, bisecting defenders and Ortega. Gakpo, at the back post, scores.
11 min: Liverpool go close twice! Szoboszlai forces a save from Ortega, and Van Dijk hits the crossbar. City can’t sustain this for much longer.
10 min: Rick Harris gets in touch: “Looking at the City team I have the overwhelming feeling that Pep will park the bus and hope that they can nick a goal on the break. Haven’t seen the betting odds but I’m guessing 0-0 must be heavily backed. These games are usually hyped to the rafters but rarely deliver. Let’s hope I am wrong.”
Sitting back with this defence, is parking the Arkansas Chug-a-Bug, a cartoon car.
8 min: Gravenberch attempts to wiggle through. Then Robertson gallops on and his pass to the centre finds plenty of takers, too many, perhaps. City clear hurriedly. Ake slows play down by claiming a hand injury.
6 min: All Liverpool? Yes, so far. And nothing like the patient build-up under Slot. We are back and rocking in true heavy metal style.
5 min: City torn asunder, Gundogan loses it, ball out to Gakpo. He cuts in, and Ortega makes a save. There’s an offside but City looked weak again.
4 min: Ake raps into Salah. Kelleher had given the ball directly to Salah.
2 min: A Liverpool attack of promise. Salah wafts the ball across goal but no takers. He and Trent Alexander-Arnold had made space rather easily.
Away we go at Anfield
1 min: Rico Lewis is on the right, doubling up ahead of Kyle Walker. Foden has an early skate through some red shirts but the ball goes back to Kelleher.
Big, manly, if distant embrace between Arne and Pep. Arne had the bigger smile. The toss has meant that Liverpool will attack the Kop in the first half. Old-school stuff.
OK, the teams are lined up, and Anfield rings out with songs. The City fans boo You’ll Never Walk Alone. Sounds a heady mix of an atmosphere.
Guardiola on the dropping of Ederson for Ortega.
“No. We just wanted to change something. Eddy [Ederson] has saved a lot of goals for us. He’s saved one-against-ones many, many times, but I decided to pick Stefan [Ortega] today. Both are incredibly top goalkeepers, they’re both incredible with their feet and in one-v-ones. Since he arrived, we’ve had incredible two goalkeepers.”
“Basically, the players [who start] are more fit. That is the reason why. In the starting eleven, I could have changed a few other players. I know what Ruben [Dias] can give us in terms of leadership, but the other selections are about having more rhythm and more in the legs.”
Max Sanderson gets in touch: “I have to say all this talk of Pep’s impending day of reckoning hasn’t sat quite right with me. One factor that has been overlooked is Phil Foden, who’s obviously had a quiet year so far, but if he can find the pockets today, it could the impetus for City to turn their season around.”
Some highlights of that remarkable Sky interview with Guardiola:
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“You cannot imagine how much I get paid! It comes with my salary. If I don’t want that pressure, I resign, go home and I don’t have this weight on my shoulders. All the managers have that.”
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“How you are in your thoughts when the opponent punches you in the face. That’s being stable.”
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“I always use this as an example: Romelu Lukaku, two minutes to go in the final of the Champions League. In the six-yard box in the middle with a header. He shoots into the knee of Ederson. And we won the Champions League. What a legend Pep is! What a team, personality, character!”
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I want to be honest: the club needs this period. To realise what we have done and build for the future. It’s so important. You have to lose sometimes. I don’t like it. But it will be good for the club.”
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“But knowing the reality and the team, we cannot make targets to win the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cups. It’s unnecessary when in the last six games we have not been able to win one.”
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“If Liverpool win, I would shake their hands. If Arsenal win with Mikel Arteta, I would be so happy for him. Believe me, truly, honestly. But I don’t like not competing because the players I have are injured. But it is what it is. It’s life.”
Arne Slot has been speaking to the BBC: “I think what we expect is what you always expect from City. They like to control the ball and possession. Maybe the difference between this [and normal] is [lack of] wingers. We have to wait and see in the first few minutes if they have changed anything in terms of formation.
“A bit of everything today. We’d both like to have the ball. If you’re sloppy [in a game like this] you have no chance. You have to be top on every aspect of your game. We have to be on top of our game in everything.”
“I still had one choice to make. Five defenders for four positions going into a month like this is far from ideal. The injuries won’t take one week. Dom played really well last week. We have four attackers available. Harvey Elliott is coming back and can help us.”
Jack Grealish, benched again, is meanwhile confined to saying “Merry Football-darts-mas” on Sky. Oh dear.
A wide-ranging interview that Pep gave to Sky. To say he looks a bit jumpy may be understating it.
Jose gets in touch: “I just wanted to comment that in South America and south of Spain Diaz and Dias are pronounced in the same way but in the rest of Spain Diaz is pronounced like “Diath”. So we would say “Diath” for the Liverpool player and Dias for the Manchester City player.”
For Liverpool: Conor Bradley had his Mbappe moment but also got injured so a timely return for Trent Alexander-Arnold. Joe Gomez replaces Ibrahima Konate and Dominik Szoboszlai replaces Curtis Jones in midfield.
For City: Ederson dropped, with Scott Carson on the bench too? Kyle Walker survives but Joso Gvardiol is also out. Ruben Dias is back. De Bruyne remains on the bench. Jack Grealish will also be riding pine.
The teams are here:
Liverpool: Kelleher, Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson, Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, Mac Allister, Salah, Nunez, Gakpo, Diaz. Subs: Jaros, Davies, Endo, Nunez, Jones, Elliott, Quansah, Morton, Nyoni.
Manchester City XI: Ortega, Walker, Akanji, Dias, Ake, Lewis, Gundogan, Nunes, Silva, Foden, Haaland. Subs: Ederson, Carson, Grealish, Doku, De Bruyne, Gvardiol, Savinho, O’Reilly, McAtee
“I don’t sleep as good as when I won every game. I’m the same person as four Premier Leagues in a row and in that situation, I have the same doubts. Now I want to be closer to the players, because I know they are suffering, I know they are thinking: ‘Oh God, how we were not able to win that game against Feyenoord?’ Or: ‘Why don’t we score when we had the chance to score against Spurs?’ They are suffering. What can I do, blame them? Absolutely not.”
Plenty of previews for this game.
Early team news
Liverpool
Subs from Jaros, Davies, Bradley, Gomez, Quansah, Endo, Elliott, Morton, Szoboszlai, Gakpo, Nyoni
Doubtful Bradley (hamstring)
Injured Konaté (knee, unknown), Alisson (hamstring, 7 Dec), Jota (ribs, 7 Dec), Chiesa (muscle, 7 Dec), Tsimikas (ankle, unknown)
Suspended None
Form WWDWWW Leading scorer Salah 10
Manchester City
Subs from Carson, Ortega, Wilson-Ebrand, McAtee, Perrone, Savinho, O’Reilly, Gündogan, Simpson-Pusey, Nunes, Aké
Doubtful Stones (unknown), Doku (hamstring)
Injured Bobb (leg, 1 Jan), Rodri (knee, 1 Jun), Kovacic (unknown, 21 Dec)
Suspended None
Form WWWLLL Leading scorer Haaland 12
Preamble
OK, this is massive. Certain early-season matches – and this is still pretty early in the season – carry too much hype, but with Manchester City wobbling – and wibbling – and Liverpool flying, this is a huge match. Could the gap between the two be 11 whole points? That would be shades of 2019-20, when Liverpool stormed to the Premier League. All eyes on Pep Guardiola, who took head-scratching too far the other night, and whose media appearances since Tuesday’s 3-3 draw with Feyenoord have held the look of a haunted man. Arne Slot has taken on the chilled-out entertainer role, cracking gags about Mo Salah when so many others are catastrophising, and his team look capable of several gears. City meanwhile, seem incapable of even grinding games out. They can’t, though, afford to lose this, and the great teams will always find a way. Now is the time for them to be stand up and be counted.
Kick-off is at 4pm UK time. Join me.
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