It shouldn’t be a surprise that Man City can pull off a completely radical approach in a game of such magnitude
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - APRIL 10: Gabriel Jesus of Manchester City (C) celebrates after scoring their 2nd goal during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Liverpool at Etihad Stadium on April 10, 2022 in Manchester, United Kingdom. (Photo by Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
By Sam Lee Apr 11, 2022 27
The nightmare scenario for Manchester City now is that in a few weeks’ time the world is looking at replays of Riyad Mahrez’s last-minute chance and saying, “This was the turning point”.
Of course, if that were to happen then City would need to have dropped points later down the line and that would probably be a bit of a turning point as well. Yes, City should have won the match, they had the chances to do so and had they taken one of them they would have been four points clear now, with Liverpool really struggling.
“Why won’t you die?” — as Freddy Krueger said to his fellow unkillable menace Jason Voorhees in some horror film or other — was the phrase that sprang to mind at full-time. And Pep Guardiola was on the same page.
“We left them alive,” he lamented afterwards, seemingly more disappointed at what had unfolded than full of praise for a fine performance, which is his usual approach.
But he told his players not to be down and to focus on what they did well. If we are getting ahead of ourselves and looking to what might pan out in the next few weeks, what does this match tell us about City’s chances of silverware?
Well, they turned up. Boy, did they turn up.
This Liverpool side had to win the match to keep the title in their hands, which seemed to crank their usual ferocity up to 11, meaning that the margins were tighter than ever — that every ball in behind, every ball into the box, every Mohamed Salah dribble at Joao Cancelo, every sideways pass in midfield had something massive riding on it… and City dealt with it, and more.
If you saw the game, you’d have seen one side create far more chances than their illustrious opponents, one team that was able to put their usual stamp on the game but crucially a team that mixed it up, and in a big way.
Patience, patience, patience. It has been the mantra of Guardiola’s side over the past 18 months and one that got them to last season’s Champions League final. It has taken them to the top of the table again with seven games to go, and got them a 1-0 lead to take to Atletico Madrid on Wednesday.
But that was out of the window on Sunday, and with Pep Guardiola’s blessing. In January he bemoaned that his players pushed for a second goal against Chelsea on the counter-attack, roared on by their fans, when they should have taken the cold decision and made “a thousand million passes” instead.
He understood, though, because they are human and with the opportunity presented, and 52,000 people urging it, and the adrenaline flowing… what else can you do?
So on Sunday he embraced the chaos. Maybe a slow start to wrest control of the game? Frustrate Liverpool and eventually peg them back with those thousand million passes? Nope. Take that free kick as soon as you get it, drive forward and shoot. City 1-0 Liverpool inside five minutes.
Had the City players simply been sucked in by the occasion, by 55,000 people (away end included) roaring for action? Nope. Look at Guardiola’s line-up: Raheem Sterling as a No 9. Not a false No 9; a proper one making runs in behind. Look at City’s confidence in playing long balls from their defenders over the shoulder of the Liverpool back line and getting Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Phil Foden to hunt them down.
That’s how Liverpool go about things, genuinely. If they’re pressed, they can ping one over the top and send Salah, Sadio Mane and now Luis Diaz after it. Ask a few questions, cause a few problems. But it’s not patient. “The quicker you put the ball forward, the quicker it comes back,” Guardiola has said in Catalan, Spanish, German and English over the years. But on Sunday, it had to go forward.
Sterling found joy when running in behind Liverpool’s defence (Photo: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
Despite such a departure from their style, from Guardiola’s now firmly established desire from control, they made it work. They chased those loose balls, they played for the second balls, they (Jesus, this time) roughed up Virgil van Dijk when going for headers.
It should be no surprise, really, that they can do this. Just because they don’t get the chance to, owing to the amount of opponents who defend deeply against them, it doesn’t mean that they can’t.
But to pull out a completely radical approach (by their standards) in a game of this magnitude, against a team as good as Liverpool — a team who could easily send the ball back the other way twice as quickly (and finish clinically) — it was: 1. a reminder of Guardiola’s bravery and genius (maybe that seems over the top but, come on, think about it) and 2. underlined the City players’ ability to carry out a plan. And 3, actually: the guts and fight to scrap in all the little moments that can’t be drawn on a tactics board.
They will be, and will have been, devastated by Mane’s equaliser at the start of the second half. It was the only period of the game where they were caught cold, in reality. Liverpool were no mugs here, but City matched them or bettered them for the vast majority. In City’s one small lull they were punished. That’s top-level football.
“Listen, we can say what happened if we converted the chances or not conceded or whatever,” Guardiola said, “but the performance we did was great.”
And with the devastation of Mane’s goal in mind, that blow to any plans to try to control the second half and pick off the third goal that they deserved, the disappointment that Liverpool just would not die, they steadied themselves and set about doing it all again.
Yes, there’s disappointment that it didn’t result in a winning goal. They could bemoan the narrowest of margins for Sterling’s offside, although they could thank a deflection for their first goal and a similarly tight offside call in their favour for both of their goals.
After all of that, all of the battles (how will some of these players do all this again in the Champions League on Wednesday?), all of the chances and the emotion and the genuine impressiveness of City’s performance, they could not kill off Liverpool.
What if Jesus had pulled the ball back? What if Mahrez’s chip had dipped under Alisson’s crossbar?
What if City can go to the well like this in the biggest matches that lie ahead?
