Manchester City survived a rocky start against Liverpool to earn a convincing win against their title rivals, running out 5-0 winners in today’s early kickoff at the Etihad Stadium.
The visitors failed to make their early dominance count and fell apart after Sadio Mane’s red card in the first half, with Sergio Aguero’s opener followed up by two from impressive youngster Gabriel Jesus and a further two from substitute Leroy Sane.
STAR MAN – KEVIN DE BRUYNE
Perhaps the most underrated attacking midfielder in the game at the moment, Kevin De Bruyne was instrumental in City’s best moves this afternoon, and helped himself to two assists.
The Belgian, playing a slightly deeper role these days than he did at previous club Wolfsburg, is growing into being City’s main creator, and looks ideal as a long-term replacement for David Silva.
His first assist for Aguero was a perfectly-weighted through-ball in-between Liverpool’s two centre-backs, giving the Argentine the easy task of rounding Simon Mignolet before rolling it into the back of the net.
De Bruyne then whipped in an impeccable cross for Jesus, who headed in the second. Moments earlier, the two had also combined, only for the Brazilian to see his goal disallowed for offside. The warning signs were there for Liverpool, but the pairing were still too good to be stopped.
FAILED TO IMPRESS – MOHAMED SALAH AND NICOLAS OTAMENDI
These two were engaged in quite a battle for much of the first half, but both were as bad as each other in their respective roles.
Otamendi, almost permanently out of position or outpaced by Salah, had an absolute nightmare and nearly gave away a penalty inside five minutes with a foul right on the edge of the box, which was rightly punished with a yellow card.
For all that Salah was having Otamendi for breakfast, however, he completely messed up chance after chance when it came to actually getting into the box.
The Egyptian scored 19 goals for Roma last season so can clearly do better, but we’re yet to see if he can really produce the required end product in the Premier League, where he’ll inevitably have less time and come up against – Otamendi apart – better defenders week in, week out.
As well as his poor finishing, Salah also failed to spot an unmarked Roberto Firmino at one point in the first half, scuffing it right into the arms of the goalkeeper. Damningly, he was dragged off by Jurgen Klopp at half time.
WHAT SURPRISED US – LIVERPOOL’S CAPITULATION
Even being down to ten men, it’s incredible quite how much Liverpool fell apart after making such a strong start to the game.
Until Aguero’s opener, it looked like a goal was inevitable for the Reds, but they did precious little during the second half as City strolled to victory.
Klopp will certainly need to look at the quality of his defence, which was found wanting on the opening day against Watford, but which was barely tested against Crystal Palace and Arsenal – results which certainly papered over one or two cracks at Anfield.
Mane’s straight red means he’ll now miss three games, and it’s a big cause of concern for Liverpool that they have little in the way of a Plan B when their admittedly excellent front three aren’t firing.
On another day, this game could have gone very differently if Liverpool had been more clinical early on, but the response to the disappointment doesn’t look encouraging for a side who’ll want to be title contenders this season.
WHAT DIDN’T SURPRISE US – SERGIO AGUERO PUNISHING LIVERPOOL AGAIN
He just loves scoring against Liverpool – Sergio Aguero has now netted in each of his six home games against the Merseysiders in his City career.
The Argentine also made a small piece of history by scoring his 124th in the Premier League, making him the top-scoring non-European player in the top flight’s 25-year history.
Quite why Pep Guardiola doesn’t always seem to rate him or rely on him as a regular starter is beyond pretty much everyone in the game, but today’s match might serve as a reminder of what can happen if you have clinical strikers up front.
While Liverpool lacked a genuine centre-forward to make their early chances count, City didn’t need too many invitations before Aguero broke the deadlock and Jesus poached in two more.
And to think Pep thought he needed Alexis Sanchez…
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