This game was supposed to be about Manchester City’s wealth of attacking options, not the paucity of their defence. Liverpool were considered to be the side with the defensive worries, with many fans nervous about Dejan Lovren coming into the side for the injured Mamadou Sakho and facing the pace of Raheem Sterling and the power of Sergio Agüero, yet it was the home back line that struggled almost from the word go.
It was not all the fault of Martín Demichelis, making his first league start since the 4-1 mauling at White Hart Lane in September, though some of it was and Manuel Pellegrini’s gamble in recalling the centre-half as cover for Vincent Kompany could not be judged a success. Preferred to Nicolás Otamendi, who played for Argentina in midweek, Demichelis was caught out for the second goal and could have done better for the third, though in all honesty the same charge could be levelled at the whole of the City defence.
The match must have made painful viewing for Kompany, out with a calf injury. City often lack defensive cohesion when their captain is missing, though on this occasion it was leadership and composure that were most conspicuously absent. In other circumstances City might have been able to play their way back from the concession of an early goal. Here, their collective nerve failed them, a mistake led to a second and for a short while Liverpool were doing as they pleased.
Agüero’s goal on the stroke of the interval gave one of the season’s odder half-time scorelines a vestige of normality, though it is no exaggeration to suggest the visitors could have been five goals to the good by that stage. Roberto Firmino could easily have had a first-half hat-trick, missing one chance by inches and being denied by Joe Hart when he only had the goalkeeper to beat with Liverpool already three goals up. That sort of winning margin would have been an even bigger surprise than Leicester taking over at the top of the league and, quite remarkably, Liverpool reduced City to rubble without any of their frontline strikers.
It seemed odd at first, with all the pre-match talk about Sterling facing his old club and Agüero making a return after a month out through injury, that Liverpool should choose to leave their main attacking threat on the bench. Yet, in fielding a side without a recognised striker, Jürgen Klopp was merely reverting to the formula that worked so well at Chelsea. When Christian Benteke returned the following week to face Crystal Palace at Anfield the result was not as encouraging, so the Belgian joined Daniel Sturridge among the substitutes as Klopp placed his faith in the Brazilian forwards Philippe Coutinho and Firmino.
The strategy, if that is what it was, worked perfectly to give Liverpool a seventh-minute lead. Bacary Sagna lost the ball under no particular pressure in his own half, Coutinho played in Firmino and a rather hopeful cross was turned past his own goalkeeper by Eliaquim Mangala to get the game off to a start no one had anticipated.
There were still 83 minutes for the league leaders to retrieve the situation, however, so the stadium sat back and waited for Yaya Touré to exert a decisive influence in midfield, Sterling to shine as brightly in attack as he had against Sevilla, or Kevin De Bruyne to conjure an opening for Agüero.
None of which happened. De Bruyne kept being knocked off the ball, Sterling played some decent through balls to colleagues but appeared reluctant to take on the Liverpool defence himself, while by the time Touré earned the derision of his home crowd for losing out in an aerial challenge to the less than towering Lucas Leiva, City had shipped a second goal. Again the home defence was questionable, Demichelis being punished for a defensively vague header, and again the two Brazilians were involved. Firmino pounced eagerly on the mistake, Coutinho was up in support to clinically tuck away his team‑mate’s excellent cross.
By the half-hour stage, as might be expected, Liverpool’s confidence was sky-high and City were a bag of nerves. That practically everything the visitors were trying was coming off was exemplified by the almost comical third goal, another Brazilian combination act but one that would not have happened had Hart dealt better with Coutinho’s original shot. Instead, after Alberto Moreno had caught up with the loose ball and Emre Can foxed the City defence with the sort of extravagant back-heel that players only attempt when there is nothing at stake or they do not particularly rate the opposition, Coutinho and Firmino between them were practically tossing a coin to decide who should put the ball into the unguarded net.
The game normalised itself to a degree after that remarkable sight, though not to the extent of Sterling or De Bruyne playing City back into it. Liverpool held firm, it was James Milner’s day rather than Sterling’s, not forgetting the two Brazilians. Three if you include Lucas. And Can, who on occasion was just as inspired. Had Klopp turned round after Martin Skrtel’s fourth, he would have seen hundreds of City fans streaming for the exits. Like the Liverpool fans chorusing: “Show them the way to go home,” he would suddenly have felt a lot better about himself and his new club.
