Daniel’s Debrief: Liverpool 1-1 Manchester City

The final Premier League meeting of Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp ends up being symptomatic of the era.

It’s football played in a fashion that is both beautiful and aggressive, is both calm and relentless, that provides both surprise and inevitability.

It’s football that only these two can do.

It’s the two best sides in the country and possibly in the world too, and it’s yet another classic to add to the memory bank of these two great teams.

It’s a game today that from Liverpool’s point of view, is symptomatic of the era too: we come into it with a squad that on paper, has no business even competing with this incredible City team, yet once again Jurgen Klopp and the players outdo themselves and produce borderline miracles to not just stay with City, but to threaten them, to hurt them and to match them.

And yet, agonisingly, they don’t quite get over the line. This game was the equivalent of Liverpool finishing 2nd, a point behind Man City in both 18/19 and 21/22.

They were incredible - yet somehow, it wasn’t quite enough.

You have to do something so special to beat this Man City team and Liverpool come oh-so-close to doing that here today. But, City hang on for a draw which keeps Liverpool in front of them, but given the nature of our performance today, feels like a missed opportunity.

It’s worth mentioning that in those two seasons that we miss out on the league by a point to City, we draw both times at Anfield.

When the lineup drops, a draw feels like not only a great result but an unlikely one. Ibrahima Konate not making it and Mohamed Salah, so often the standard-setter in this fixture, only on the bench, feel like major blows.

Because even though City’s record at Anfield is pretty wretched, they’ve outplayed Liverpool in four of the last five meetings here, though only got one win to show for it.

18/19 and 21/22 relied upon riding luck to stay in the game early on and then individual brilliance to secure draws, 22/23 was ludicrous that we won, given their dominance early on.

So, when Liverpool struggle to even see the ball, let alone touch it in the first ten minutes, I’m fearing another game like that where we have to hang in and hope City lose their heads, or hope that two or three players put in 10/10s.

It’s arguable that both end up happening.

Liverpool get into the game after a brutal opening ten minutes and suddenly look dangerous. Alexis Mac Allister causes problems for City on the ball and both Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez are live in the game.

Nunez’s first half is immensely frustrating. Knowing that our time with the ball and time on the ball was going to be limited and precious, he was always going to be important to get in behind with quick through-balls or even long balls, and whilst he’s always there and always looking, kills so many promising attacks by being offside.

This happened a lot earlier in the season, around December time. He had a run between the Fulham win and the Manchester United draw at Anfield where he was perennially caught offside but has cut it out of his game until today.

City go in front from a corner with a bit of genius from Kevin De Bruyne, turned home by John Stones. There’s nothing Liverpool can do better here, it’s a piece of extreme quality.

City look more comfortable and composed on the ball, they move it better and more freely for periods, but there are bright sparks too for Liverpool.

Diaz gets a shot away that is so similar to his Tottenham goal from two seasons ago, Conor Bradley is a constant outlet out wide and suddenly Wataru Endo and Mac Allister are starting to dominate in the middle of the park.

At half-time, Liverpool have punched above their weight and done better than they had any right to do, but were just behind.

Symptomatic. Of. The. Era.

As is the second half, in that Liverpool put in a performance that you just don’t think is possible, because it shouldn’t be possible.

Klopp has Liverpool doing things they shouldn’t be dreaming of doing. He’s got so many missing men but the replacements step up admirably, again. 

Bradley had been Liverpool’s brightest player in the first half, he’s so good at nicking balls in tight spaces, at getting us on the front foot. 

It’s at a point now where there’s genuine questions over how Trent Alexander-Arnold gets back in the team, and that’s not saying he shouldn’t, that’s asking how and where.

Because Bradley might be the best prescriptive right-back we’ve got. I’ve said it before, but whether it’s Xabi Alonso, Ruben Amorim or Simone Inzaghi, Klopp is leaving them a bubbling squad to work with.

Of course, Bradley isn’t the only Irishman to have stepped up recently - Caoimhin Kelleher has been top-class and while he has one shaky moment with Phil Foden in the second half, he also stands up superbly to block a shot from him earlier on from almost an identical angle to how he scored at Anfield in 2021.

It’s a big call to start Joe Gomez over Andy Robertson and it’s probably the first team in seven years that Robertson hasn’t been picked for a big game.

I understood it though. Robertson has been bombing out of position, rushing out of his line and leaving vacant space recently. Gomez was the right choice for the early part of the game, where you have to stay in it, Robertson the right choice to end the game, where you can be more adventurous and try to win it.

Robertson does well when he comes on and whips in a beautiful ball that Nunez nearly scores from, while Gomez runs out of steam a little bit at right-back, but is very good again, overall.

Nunez’s first-half performance isn’t great but he’s always present and that’s how Liverpool end up scoring early on in the second half when he’s alive to a poor ball from Nathan Ake and gets cleared out by Ederson.

As standard-setting as Ederson and Alisson Becker are, they both have quite the catalogue of major errors in these fixtures over the years.

Mac Allister scores the penalty emphatically. He is playing sublime football at the minute. Three goals and four assists in his last six starts is incredibly impressive and since he’s moved into the more advanced role, has gone up a level.

He’s the player in the last few weeks, along with Virgil Van Dijk, that has shown the ‘scruff of the neck’ attitude.

He wins the most duels and makes the most recoveries of anyone on the pitch, which for someone so key to the attack, is ridiculous.

Despite all of this, I’m not actually sure he’s Liverpool’s best player on the day, or even the best midfielder.

Endo is magnificent and imperious.

I was thinking this morning about City away in November when Endo doesn’t start and at that point, he’d not done much at all to earn a start. In Toulouse, he looked like he’d won a competition to play for Liverpool on a cereal box.

But since Fulham in December, he’s been absolutely faultless and a key figure. I’m now at a point where I don’t want to imagine a world without him and I remain convinced that we wouldn’t have lost at Arsenal if he’d been available.

His 96% pass accuracy, six duels won out of seven and 100% tackle success rate are just some of the stories from a remarkable individual showing. There were times where it looked like Endo was on the pitch twice because whatever was happening, wherever the ball was, he was there too.

I can think of three particularly wonderful performances from him this season - Arsenal in December, the League Cup final and then today. Three times he’s been world-class in the biggest of all big games.

It feels like this can’t be the same player as pre-December, but the reality is that he’s just the latest in a long line of players to go up a level with Klopp’s coaching.

Everyone knows that Rodri is the best DM in the world and the best DM in the world played at Anfield today but he wasn’t the best DM on the pitch.

Dominik Szoboszlai has a less successful outing and is just a little inaccurate. Harvey Elliott moves into midfield after he goes off and what Elliott lacks in pace or physicality, he more than makes up for with his engine.

The work he has done since Luton is staggering really. A genuinely preposterous amount of minutes - it almost feels scandalous how much he’s played. 

He looked dead after playing every minute Wembley and then again after Southampton and yet he’s played every minute since. 

If he’s even anywhere near the stadium on Thursday, he’ll have grounds to have Klopp on an employment tribunal.

Both centre-backs are immense. Quansah steps into the biggest game of his career and is so calm, and so mature with the ball.

Van Dijk has been one of the players of the season and is colossal yet again. He and Quansah deal with City’s terrifying attack so well.

I’m not saying this for satire, more to credit Quansah and Van Dijk, but there was a point in the second half where I genuinely thought Erling Haaland had been taken off.

However, if Haaland was in a red shirt today, Liverpool would’ve won. Because with 2.7xG in a game of this magnitude, you’ve got to score more than once.

I’m sure Diaz is going to get pelters and shouts of him costing us the game but for me, he’s terrific today. His tenacity is unbelievable.

He is a constant way out and in the second half, he is a major factor in why Liverpool have such joy.

There’s a moment where he goes past both Rodri and Kyle Walker, which again, doesn’t seem possible.

His effort and quality cannot be denied on the day, and his work out wide is relentless. But, Diaz for me has always been a winger rather than a forward, and end product has always been an issue. He has the chances to score and win the game, and Haaland would’ve scored those chances, but it’s also worth saying that he might not have self-generated the chances that Diaz did.

Erling Haaland wins the game for Liverpool today, and Sadio Mane does as well.

And for so much talk of the missing players, Alisson wasn’t missed - Kelleher was great. Alexander-Arnold wasn’t missed - Bradley was fantastic. Curtis Jones, Thiago, Ryan Gravenberch and Stefan Bajcetic weren’t missed - Endo and Mac Allister were supreme. Konate wasn’t missed - Quansah was majestic.

The one that was missed, though, was Diogo Jota. He would’ve turned home some of the chances that Diaz, Nunez, Salah and Cody Gakpo couldn’t.

The two attacking substitutes are poor - Salah just isn’t at his normal level today and Gakpo remains too quiet - he does get a good chance but refuses to shoot, which is bizarre.

The game finishes and City are relieved because bar Jeremy Doku coming close, they’ve been on the ropes for a long time. Guardiola bringing in Mateo Kovacic for De Bruyne was a good move, but a defensive one.

There’s no other team in the world that can have City grasping at straws and clutching at thin air like Liverpool do today.

To dominate the best team in the world with half of his strongest eleven missing is yet another miraculous moment from Klopp.

It’s the performance of a lifetime and the best 90 minutes we’ve played against City under him.

Liverpool inexplicably do everything right. But doing everything right, is inexplicably not enough.

Symptomatic of the era.

There’s the penalty shout at the end which might not be as stonewall as some think but I do believe it would be given as a foul anywhere else on the pitch.

Had Michael Oliver given it on the pitch, VAR wouldn’t have overturned it and for a referee that loves to have a telling influence in a big game, I was surprised he didn’t.

But whatever. Refereeing and VAR errors are par for the course. I can’t even be arsed getting annoyed about it any more.

I’d rather bask in the pleasure of watching the two best teams in the world play out one of the most entertaining games of football you’ll ever see.

I’d rather be thankful for that.

By the way, Arsenal are also fucking brilliant and have every chance for the title and now are top of the league. I’m not discounting them at all. 

It feels like two points dropped because of how the game pans out but our destiny and fate is still manageable with ten games to go. It’s possible that Liverpool will need to win all ten remaining games but it’s also possible that Arsenal and Man City will drop points - not least for the fact that they play each other next.

Liverpool doing more than they should be able to and not getting the result they deserve today is symptomatic of the era, but the day and the era are sparkling, with or without the results and trophies it’s warranted.

Daniel