Liverpool vs Man City LIVE: Premier League result, final score and reaction as Mohamed Salah seals narrow win

Raheem Sterling is one short of 50 Premier League away goals. He hasn’t scored in any of his four league appearances at Villa Park.

It was supposed to be much harder than this. Graham Potter even admitted as much when he spoke about how difficult the Champions League campaign would be after the 1-1 draw with Salzburg. It’s actually only a week since Chelsea were bottom of the group.

So much has changed. They’re now top, having beaten Milan in successive games, but it’s not just that. It forms part of a longer undefeated run for Potter since taking over, with the latest 2-0 victory his fourth successive win.

Given Potter is not the most effusive speaker, and isn’t necessarily the most quotable coach, you could almost say this is the definition of quietly going about a good job.

Chelsea’s improvement has been a consequence of any grand motivational influence, bombastic decisions or big moments. It’s just progressive work on the training ground. Potter did go into the difference in the group now, compared to that very first match.

Graham Potter’s two wins in 10 attempts as a manager against Aston Villa both came at Villa Park: 3-0 for Swansea in the 2018/19 FA Cup third round and 2-1 for Brighton in the 2020/21 Premier League.

He has taken 19 points out of a possible 24 in his eight league matches as a manager this season for Brighton and Chelsea.

Aston Villa’s only win in the last 15 league games against London opposition was 2-1 at Crystal Palace last November.

Only Wolves have scored fewer Premier League goals than the seven by Villa this season whose last nine league goals have all been scored by nine different players.

Between them, they have won the last four Premier League titles. Two of them have been decided by a solitary point and, with a couple of different results against Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp would be a three-time champion of England. Liverpool face Manchester City again on Sunday and their meetings have merited the tag of title deciders. “Could be this year,” Klopp said. “Just not with us.”

He had ruled his side out of the title race even before they lost at Arsenal. Now the kings would have to become kingmakers to exert a decisive impact at the top. But defeat would leave them 16 points behind City; even in 2020-21, when they played the majority of a campaign without specialist senior centre-backs, they were only 17 adrift after 38 matches.

The gap now is a consequence of Liverpool’s sudden slide, of a loss of consistency and a habit of conceding first, of a series of injuries and a host of players operating at a level far below their best, of a pressing game that has malfunctioned and high-risk tactics that, when they backfire, can look very wrong. There may be the hangover and physical fatigue of a 63-game campaign last year and the cumulative toll of going toe-to-toe with City season after season.

Manchester City are on a club record run of 22 away league games without defeat since losing 1-0 at Spurs on the opening weekend of last season.

They are unbeaten in 21 top-flight matches, with their only defeat in 37 coming at home to Tottenham in February.

City’s tally of 33 goals is the joint-most after nine Premier League games, level with their own record from 2011/12. The most after 10 fixtures is 36, also by City in 2011/12.

They are also the first team to score at least four goals in five consecutive top-flight fixtures since Tottenham in 1963.

Ten points is Liverpool’s lowest tally after eight games in a decade. In 2012/13, they had nine points and went on to finish seventh.

The Reds have conceded 16 goals in their last 12 league matches and let in the first goal 10 times during that run. In the previous 12 games they only conceded the opening goal twice and kept 10 clean sheets.

Liverpool can concede at least three goals in three successive top-flight fixtures for the first time since December 1953.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp admits he is not dumb enough to believe their Champions League humiliation of Rangers has solved all their issues ahead of facing Manchester City.

A devastating second half – which included the competition’s fastest hat-trick by Mohamed Salah in six minutes and 12 seconds – saw the Reds win 7-1 at Ibrox.

But considering the quality of the opposition and the lack of resilience they showed. the result provided no real barometer going into one of the toughest games of the season.

“We are not, even when people think that maybe (we are), that dumb that we think that’s the only thing we needed to beat Man City,” said Klopp.

Chelsea have won three league games in a row and are looking to earn consecutive clean sheets in the division for the first time since March.

But, the Blues could lose as many as three of their opening five away games of a Premier League season for the second time, having done so in 2015/16.

Steven Gerrard makes two changes to the Aston Villa team that started against Nottingham Forrest last time out with Philippe Coutinho and Emiliano Buendia dropping to the bench. In comes Danny Ings and Leon Bailey.

Graham Potter switches out three players from the Chelsea side that won 2-0 at AC Milan during the week. Reece James is injured so Ruben Loftus-Cheek comes in at right-wingback. Marc Cucurella starts in defence ahead of Kalidu Koulibaly and Kai Havertz returns in the forward line, Jorginho drops out and Mason Mount moves into midfield.