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Your support makes all the difference.“I am not Jesus, I cannot walk on water,” Jürgen Klopp had remarked on his first day as Liverpool’s new manager. This, however, was water that tasted uncomfortably like cabernet sauvignon.
Save for an emphatic victory at Stamford Bridge, Klopp’s record had been unremarkable but this was an astonishing indication of what he might achieve on Merseyside. Manchester City were outplayed and embarrassed on their own ground as they have rarely been in the Abu Dhabi era.
As part of their Junior Cityzens programme, City had flown one of their fans, eight-year-old Gabriel, from Brazil to Manchester to watch this game. It was especially generous of them to allow Gabriel see two of his countrymen, Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino, take Manchester City apart. The boys from Brazil scored a goal apiece and, but for some fine goalkeeping by an over-exposed Joe Hart, they might have scored several more.
Manuel Pellegrini was as cold and angry as he can have been in his time as Manchester City manager. “It was a complete disaster,” he said. Asked why he had substituted his captain, Yaya Touré, during the interval, he replied: “I was not happy with 11 players not just Yaya. They scored four times and could have scored three more. It is unbelievable. You cannot analyse a performance as low as that. It was a fake game.”
To Liverpool and their fans it would have seemed very real. Asked to describe the performance, midfielder Adam Lallana said it was “great fun” and fun is a word that is rarely used to describe Premier League football. Liverpool’s performance was exhilarating.
The last time Klopp had come to the Etihad Stadium, he had seen Borussia Dortmund dominate City and fail to win because of a Mario Balotelli penalty. When Sergio Aguero, returning for the first time since scoring five against Newcastle, thundered a shot past Simon Mignolet it seemed there might be an even more extraordinary comeback.
Mignolet saved brilliantly from the Argentine, who was not fully fit, and an emphatic drive from Martin Skrtel as Manchester City failed to deal with a corner ended any fantasy Raheem Sterling might have had of beating the club he had spurned.
The defeat of Manchester City in March represented the last significant triumph of Brendan Rodgers’ regime, settled by a supreme finish from Coutinho. Suddenly, it seemed Steven Gerrard’s farewell might include an FA Cup final and the gift of Champions League football. Then the bad fairies of Crystal Palace, Stoke City and Aston Villa came to spoil that sugar-coated ending.
Klopp reflected that this had not been a “perfect performance because we can defend better”. So can Manchester City. From the moment Bacary Sagna allowed himself to be dispossessed in the run-up to the first goal, they gave Liverpool every assistance. Coutinho sprinted down the left flank and found Firmino, who cut the ball back. Eliaquim Mangala, £42m worth of accidents waiting to happen, tripped over his own feet and propelled it into the net.
This has been a season when Vincent Kompany’s position at the heart of the Manchester City defence has been in more question than at any time in his career at the Etihad Stadium and yet, when he is absent, the holes gape.
As Firmino marauded forward again, there must have been three blue shirts near him but the switched pass left them stranded and Coutinho’s shot was drilled through Hart’s legs for Liverpool’s second.
If the first goal should have acted as a wake-up call, the second ought to have been a bucket of iced water but still Manchester City continued to slumber, their shoddiness emphasised by a free-kick that saw Touré push a simple square pass to Fernando who allowed the ball to run over his feet.
Liverpool’s third was the product of a sublime back-heel from Emre Can that released Coutinho through another horribly square City defence. The architect’s son from Rio de Janeiro laid on a simple goal for the boy from the sugar cane plantations of Maceio. It summed up Liverpool’s performance, beautifully constructed and very sweet.
Manchester City: (4-2-3-1) Hart; Sagna, Demichelis, Mangala, Kolarov; Y Touré, (Fernandinho, h-t), Fernando; Navas (Delph, h-t), De Bruyne, Sterling; Aguero (Iheanacho, 66).
Liverpool: (4-3-3) Migonolet; Clyne, Skrtel, Lovren, Moreno; Milner, Lucas Leiva, Can; Lallana (K Touré, 90), Firmino (Benteke, 77), Coutinho (Ibe, 68).
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Man of the match: Firmino (Liverpool)
Match rating: 8/10
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