Manchester City took all three points here at Anfield but could it all be pointless? Does this victory actually mean anything?
“Going down” chorused the Kop towards the City players as they celebrated with their fans. They’re going top – for now. This is the Premier League season that will be decided by lawyers. The season fast turns into a farce.
As Liverpool fans bayed “cheats, cheats, cheats”, Enzo Maresca grinned. He had plenty to smile about at Anfield. City head coach’s introduction of Jeremy Doku in the second half changed the game. Ryan Gravenberch couldn’t live with Doku, fouled him, stopping a breakaway, departing for a second yellow. The life went out of Liverpool. Already missing Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai, Liverpool had no cutting edge. City had plenty of it and showed their attacking skills with goals from Erling Haaland, Doku himself and a gem from Rayan Cherki.
At the final whistle, Anfield’s DJ put on “Little Lies” by Fleetwood Mac, a small gesture of defiance. But the real defiance came from City. This is Anfield. But it wasn’t the old Ali Sami Yen in Istanbul. It wasn’t La Bombonera in Buenos Aires. It was loud, raucous, an assault on the ears, but hardly physically intimidating. Enzo Fernandez will have witnessed worse at River Plate against Boca Juniors. Little fazes Elliot Anderson either. The Englishman, tough physically and mentally, tore into challenges on Lewis Koumas, Florian Wirtz and Alexis Mac Allister and stared them down whenever anyone reacted.
The away section of the Anfield Road end seethed with defiance. City fans waved their inflatable bananas, an echo of the craze in the late 80s. It was a stroll down memory lane, back to the Maine Road era, a reminder of an era before the Abu Dhabi riches. The bananas were a surreal gesture of defiance, almost a statement that they would back their team in whatever division.
City were represented in the smart seats. Ferran Soriano, the club’s chief executive, and director of football Hugo Viana sat there like statues at times, giving nothing away. Like their defence. Their owners’ accounting can be questioned but not the character of their players.
They certainly got an earful. If anyone had a grievance against City for missing out on trophies it was Liverpool heading the list. City maintain their innocence, but they were left in no doubt at the anger towards them following the publication of the independent commission’s guilty verdicts on their breaches of Premier League financial rules.
Throughout the game, Liverpool fans targeted every City touch with jeers and chants of “cheats”, “going down” and “you cheating b*stards, you know what you are”. Showing an impressive grasp of history, especially of the League Cup, Liverpool fans chanted, “1976, 1976, you haven’t won a trophy, since 1976”.
It was all words, though. It’s all down to the lawyers not lyricists. Liverpool fans had been busy with the banners. Signs adorned the Kop: “114FC”, “a generation of supporters cheated” and a 20-yard “cheats” with the vowels replaced by £ signs. When Cherki walked towards the corner between Kop and Sir Kenny Dalglish stand, a Liverpool fan in a dark jacket took a step towards the hoardings, gesturing over them towards the City No.10. Two stewards hurried across.
City dealt with the brief storm from Liverpool at the start of the second half. Gianluigi Donnarumma saved from Koumas and Gravenberch, whose red card just after the hour changed the game. The Dutch midfielder, Liverpool’s best player, had already been booked, slightly harshly, for a challenge on Anderson. So he was playing a risky game when impeding the breaking Doku, who had just come on for Iliman Ndiaye. Chris Kavanagh reached for yellow then red.
City reached for the exposed Liverpool jugular. Doku was unstoppable on the left. Within two minutes of going down to 10 men, Liverpool went a goal down. Doku crossed from the left, the ball deflected off Mac Allister and was met with brutal force by Haaland.
Three minutes on, Doku cut in from the left, and curled a beauty past Alisson. Ten minutes further on, and City conjured up the goal of the game, a goal that celebrated all that is good about Cherki. He linked with Anderson, then Josko Gvardiol, sat Jeremie Frimpong down and stroked City’s third past Alisson. City returned three points clear at the top. But what does it mean?
If this game showed the sort of noise that will follow City around, it also highlighted they have the character to deal with it. The farce continues.
