Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 2 Manchester City 0 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
IT finished the scoreline it should have been on 20.
Had it been that on 20 then who knows.
But the key point, the point which should be scariest for whoever our rivals are – North London – is that when it wasn’t 2-0 on 20, Liverpool shrugged their shoulders and dealt with the reality.
Liverpool get in half time. They should be further ahead. Liverpool hit 70 and Mo Salah has missed a sitter. They should be further ahead. But Liverpool deal with their reality. Darwin Nunez comes on and fights like a man possessed, but a man possessed by a reality which is this – we are one fragile goal clear of these. But one strong goal as a platform if we find a way.
That was the reality. Then they found a way.
Liverpool should have been vulnerable and for perhaps 10 Jeremy Doku-based minutes they were, but the truth of every matter is that the game was played on Liverpool’s terms from start to finish.
The last time that was the case in this league fixture was November 2019. Five years ago. A lifetime in footballing terms. But it was Liverpool’s pitch and Liverpool’s rules of engagement and that – that, my friends – is three quarters of the battle.
What happens? They get put in the washing machine. Indeed, they almost clamber in to save time and Liverpool wash them to perfection. When it goes one it should already be two. When it doesn’t go two, when Liverpool chill, it should be three.
Every Liverpool player had been outstanding. Confident, certain, brilliant on the half turn and with their head on a stick. There is one reverse ball Alexis Mac Allister plays to Mo Salah which is just breathtaking, because you don’t see it till it leaves his foot.
Again and again, Liverpool can get Mo Salah in and Nathan Ake cannot believe his luck. He cannot believe how bad it is. He is exposed by the shape, by the gambles his manager has taken and you know what, him and his teammates do alright. They should concede two. They should be punished, but they fight.
This proves the theme – this Manchester City are raging against the dying of the light. If you don’t come away delighted to have beaten them but respecting them you are doing it wrong.
Their end – which shares a banner about ticket prices with ours – stays to the end to acclaim them because they showed genuine, relentless fight. They were second best but they never wilted. They took beating. And their end stood with them until the bitter end and I’ve seen many other clubs who have gone toe-to-toe with The Reds file out.
Instead, they appreciated what their players had done, had shown and they were right to. Manchester City weren’t good enough, but they were stout. They took beating.
It makes the achievement greater. Owning the pitch against Champions who never stopped. That’s the scale of the win.
The goalkeeper digs his captain out. His captain only puts that foot wrong and his partner doesn’t even look that. Those two lads have seen December home for a title-winning Liverpool team before.
Trent Alexander-Arnold displays his range of pass before he tires and is targeted. Jarrell Quansah comes on and just wins his battle not least but making it on his terms, up the touchline. Andy Robertson also shows his range of pass and emphasises that tales of his mortality have been much overstated.
Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister look Europe’s best midfield partnership. Mac Allister in particular shows what he did in this fixture last season – that he backs himself against all of these. Man to man. Shape to shape. He adored his contest with Bernardo Silva, who managed to be Manchester City’s responsible adult until 2-0 and then lost his head.
Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo showed why they were the correct selections. Gakpo loves a big goal and Szoboszlai loves a big game. Both love to gallop and Gakpo knew he had the toiling Walker on toast.
Luis Diaz and Mo Salah were both effervescent. Diaz’s passing has gone through the roof and Salah’s pace hurt City and disrupted their shape, but they persevered.
They persevered. There is a universe where they maybe got an equaliser, but there just isn’t one where they don’t concede a second. They lack a certain something.
I like Silva and I know you almost certainly don’t, but he is precisely the sort of technical gobshite of a footballer who can be admired.
He can’t hold that fort on his own, though. They can’t run backwards and as this column has written on many occasions before, not being able to turn around is a problem playing football.
They can’t turn round and Liverpool knew they could turn them around at will. Every Liverpool player knew how to do it because Liverpool and their coach are in marvellous harmony, because Liverpool are good and capable of relentless. Indeed – at one point during the first half – I was reminded of Chelsea at home last season. It was watching good players be drawn and quartered.
That their manager post match doesn’t understand that us taking the piss out of him is a compliment is beyond me. Pre and post match I heard people singing “The Reds are taking over” chant. Guardiola. Guardiola.
It occurred to me that there is no regular chant naming Clough, Wenger, Mourinho or, say, Pellegrini. We have one that names Ferguson, Bertie Mee gets a blast, David Moyes is a football genius.
The Manchester City manager is actually a football genius. This is why it is funny the idea of him being sacked in the morning. He won’t be. He will – in fact – be back.
But right now he is too far back for the one we want and his players are too knackered and his squad too shallow; right now they are only half a football team compared to the boys in Red and how does that change quickly? Liverpool? My word. Come and adore them; say what you want about this new group phase – they actually are the kings of Europe.
We’ve won nothing today, but we’ve underlined worldwide, primitive, what we are, what this ground is and what we believe. Liverpool are favourites to win the football league. Liverpool have won 11 from 13 and five from five in Europe. Liverpool are deadly serious and Liverpool are all business and today, I suspect, they have knocked Manchester City out of this.
Liverpool look imperious, but there is a long way to go. They don’t have to send a team from Mars to beat us, not yet. Because there remains a team from Islington we need to dispatch.
The manager has been clear eyed since day one and so should we be. There is a league to be won.
And, as I have been saying:
Promise.
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