Manchester City were finally beaten in the Premier League as they succumbed to a relentless Liverpool side in a 4-3 defeat at Anfield.
It was arguably one of the worse defensive performances of the season as the away side completely crumbled within a few minutes to go 4-1 down as they looked to continue their unbeaten run. Liverpool were the better side in terms of taking advantage of the mistakes made by City’s back four, which ultimately were their downfall.
The home side were up for it from the start, and took a deserved lead after a fantastic run and strike by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after nine minutes. City did manage to level the game just before half-time as Leroy Sane controlled a fantastic cross-field pass by Kyle Walker and glided through a shaky Liverpool defence before hitting a sweet strike past Loris Karius.
In the second half, City were on top from the start and could have taken the lead if Nicolas Otamendi’s header hadn’t hit the crossbar from a corner. As the game neared the hour mark, Liverpool started a counter-attack with Oxlade-Chamberlain finding Roberto Firmino with a great threaded pass. The Brazilian resisted the pressure from John Stones and chipped the ball over fellow native Ederson to regain Liverpool’s advantage. After that, City’s back four lost their composure as Sadio Mane curled strike hit the post after Stones misplaced an easy pass. Moments later, Mane redeemed himself by hitting a wonderful strike past Ederson after another mistake from the City back four to make it 3-1. To make matters worse, Ederson’s failed attempt at booting the ball up the pitch allowed Mohamed Salah to hit a long-range shot into an empty net and condemn the Citizens to their first defeat in the league.
City, however, did show tremendous effort to come back into the game and managed to score two late goals to make it a close contest. Bernardo Silva, coming off the bench, converted after a scramble in the Liverpool box to make it 4-2. Ilkay Gundogan then made it 4-3 after Sergio Aguero’s lobbed cross found the German unmarked to convert. It is a result that Pep Guardiola and his players will want to forget in a hurry.
Here are our player ratings from the match.
