That was men against babies out there, let alone boys. Man City showed Liverpool no mercy as they destroyed the Reds 4-1 at the Etihad, keeping them withing 8 points of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League.
I don’t really know what was more surprising: how bad Liverpool was, or how fluid and destructive Man City’s attack was?
Sure, Liverpool have had an absolutely dreadful season (aside from that 7-0 win over Man United) thus far as they’ve been knocked out of all cup competitions and sit 6th place in the Premier League, but this might have been their worst performance of the season yet.
How Liverpool, a team that lost to this very same Man City side (Erling Haaland didn’t play today) in the league by a single point last year, could get utterly humiliated so thoroughly is honestly astonishing. Seriously, aside from Mo Salah’s 17th minute strike that was really down to a huge defensive miscue from Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake, Liverpool didn’t generate a thing in this match.
In the 94 or so minutes played, Liverpool had 4 shots, 1 shot on target, 31% possession, 350 passes, an 82% passing accuracy and just a single corner, while Man City had 17 shots, 8 shots on target, 69% possession, 754 passes (over 400 more than Liverpool!), 91% passing accuracy, and 7 corners. That’s a demolition job.
It’s honestly insane how far Liverpool have fallen this year as pretty much every player on that pitch, including the likes of Virgil Van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andrew Robertson, Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, and Mo Salah, either gave up or has lost 2-3 steps to their game.
Alexander-Arnold was put through a blender by Jack Grealish all game long, Andy Robertson spent the whole game rushing back as he was often caught too far up field, Henderson and Fabinho were bypassed as if they were scarecrows (which they pretty much are at this point), Mo Salah was a ghost before and after his goal, and Virgil Van Dijk looked like a championship defender trying to stop Man City’s attack.
Seriously, the collapse of Van Dijk’s game this season has been the scariest thing to watch as a neutral (well, more like a rival fan of Liverpool, but you get the idea) as he’s now directly responsible for the goals Liverpool concede, rather than being there when scored on like Alisson.
I don’t know if he just can’t run anymore after his devastating knee injury back in 2021 (which is possible), but he’s either super slow tracking back or simply shadowing whichever forward has the ball before they either shoot themselves or pass to another player in the box. In other words, Van Dijk has been USELESS…which was masterfully exploited by City today!
Led by Kevin De Breyne, Jack Grealish, Julian Alvarez, and İlkay Gündoğan, all of whom scored a goal, Man City’s attack ruthless punished an out-of-form, slow, lethargic, and downright broken Liverpool defense. Rodri, Gündoğan, and De Breyne literally passed Liverpool’s midfield to death, allowing the likes of Juliea Alvarez (who filled in for an injured Erling Haaland), Grealish, and Riyad Mahrez to tear through the Reds Swiss cheese-like defense.
Jurgen Klopp MUST abandon his high-pressing system as it was the direct cause of at least three of Man City’s four goals. Whenever you’d look up, you’d see a huge switch of play ball whipped over one side of the field to the other by a City player, leaving just 3-4 Liverpool players scrambling back in defense to stop the oncoming rush of 4-5 eager, hungry, and ruthless City players.
And this has happened in pretty much every game Liverpool has played this year, but City’s attack is just so good it was able to repeatedly hurt Liverpool in this stylistic fashion.
I honesty kind of feel bad for Alisson nowadays as even though he’s been the one Liverpool player to actually play up to his reputation, he’s still so often finding himself picking the ball up out of his net. Obviously, I’m all for Liverpool getting ripped apart after they destroyed Man United 7-0, but I can’t help but empathize for Alisson as a keeper of his quality shouldn’t be pelted with as many shots and goals as this Liverpool defense is allowing.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned in the intro, Man City (2nd; 64 PTS) are still a full 8 points behind Arsenal (1st; 72 PTS) with just 10 games left to go in the season. I don’t know if they’ll be able to overcome this point gap, even with their one game still in hand, as Arsenal have been a machine these last few weeks, but this result shows they haven’t given up yet.
Reversely, Liverpool (6th; 42 PTS) have pretty much given up on this season.
The Reds are currently 8 points behind Manchester United in 3rd place (and have played a game more), 7 points behind Tottenham in 4th place, 5 points behind Newcastle in 5th place, and 1 point behind 6th place Brighton and 7th place Brentford…which is just embarrassing for me to write.
Sure, they have games in hand on Spurs, but Brighton, Newcastle, and Manchester United all have played at least one game less than Liverpool, thus making it theoretically possible the Reds find themselves three more points behind those teams at the end of the weekend (well, actually not Newcastle or United as they play each other tomorrow).
Anyways, this humiliating loss serves more as a morale loss than anything else as it is yet another reminder this Liverpool team no longer is capable of competing with the best teams in England, let alone the best in Europe.
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