Amazing. The way that Klopp and his team have taken Pep Guardiola’s style of football, the technical and tactical blueprint that won 2 European Cups in 3 years at Barcelona and has set Manchester City on course for 100+ points and goals this season, and turned it from a virtue into a curse is simply amazing.
During the first half last night, and throughout the 4-3 League win at the same ground in January, City’s attempts to play football their way often resembled someone slowly sinking in quicksand — the more they struggled, the worse their situation became. And by the time Andy Robertson burst into the box at 3-0, having slalomed his way down the entire right-hand side of City’s midfield and defence, they were up to their collective neck in it. Their coach’s doctrine, as well as their very nature as footballers, suddenly became the enemy; in passing the ball, they were merely positioning themselves exactly where Liverpool wanted them. And even as they appeared to exert control of the game in the second half, it would still be true to say that this was a manifestation of Liverpool’s will rather than their own.
The temptation for assorted media pundits and “experts”, as is so often the case, as it was throughout the club’s run to its last European Cup victory in 2005, will be to attribute the events of last night to the shortcomings of the hyped pre-match favourites, and City certainly made mistakes in their approach to the game. However, those mistakes still needed to be punished, and they were, mercilessly, to an extent that wasn’t limited to the goals that Liverpool scored — the decision to target Trent Alexander-Arnold, for example, was punished too, in this case by the assured performance of the player himself.
Excluding the Champions League dead rubbers against Shaktar and Basel, City have only lost 3 games this season and 2 of those were against Liverpool. Last night the home side took it in turns to first make them look like a disorganised rabble, then utterly toothless, but they are neither toothless nor disorganised. Liverpool are alone this season in making the best, most expensive team in England look ordinary, and the fact that Guardiola has now won only 1 of 5 against Klopp since his arrival in England, and that the German has the best record of all managers against him, means that none of this can be seen as a mere coincidence.