Yeah. They key to beating a team like City is being strong over several seasons. You just have to try and match them blow for blow. That's nigh on impossible - unless you have a coach like Klopp.
That said, we know they'll bounce back, and that we can take nothing for granted. But like finishing second against Real Madrid, we bounced back the following year. We can do that in the league as well because Klopp learns from his mistakes and doesn't look to spend his way out of trouble. The psychology of our team is very different to City's.
I know what you are saying but I was talking to a young Liverpool fan at work during the summer and told him that Kompany would be a big miss for them and it shouldn't be under estimated, just look at the impact Van Dijk, as single player, has had for us. He dismissed it and thinks City could just spend their way out of the problem and recover, well maybe but we all know a high transfer fee does not always guarantee you've made a good signing. Even if the signings are sound, it takes varying degrees of time to bed in the new players and for the team and player to adjust to each other. There was an interesting piece of analysis by Keown on Sunday where he highlighted two of their players Mahrez and Otamendi I think it was, being only slightly out of position during a City move, resulting in Wolves being able to counter and play into massive gaps after a turnover. These sorts of patterns are practised relentlessly by the top teams meaning positions and passes almost become instinctive by the players. Liverpool have a settled side and haven't had to bed in many new players during the last eighteen months, these sorts of patterns of play have become second nature.
The other thing I don't get with that younger fan is his negativity that Liverpool cannot catch them up an it is inevitable that City will win the league. Perhaps it is because he's never seen Liverpool win it and the club has had a lot of false dawn's, but its quite clear to me that Klopp has created a special team, even compared to the great sides I've seen and he's also a proven winner as an underdog against much stronger clubs. So I also pointed out to him that Guardiola is at the point of having to build a new team - has he ever done that before? Has he ever built a team from scratch? Key players such as Kompany (gone), Aguero, D. Silva, Fernandinho, possibly Otamendi will need replacing in the near future - the spine of a team. It's doable as they have unlimited financial resources but difficult to keep continuity and there are likely to be some bumps in the road. Take that Laporte injury, they are now playing Fernandinho there and he'll do a good job but will be missed in midfield which suggests they don't have a ready made replacement in there.
I notice that referees seem to be on to them about their tactical fowling now and they received a few bookings for it on Sunday. I first came across this side of the game watching the Arsenal so called 'invincibles' side and when I pointed it out to people they thought it was ridiculous to criticise such a great footballing side and it is difficult to spot a side doing this when they dominate possession, thankfully this has been highlighted in City's game by Arteta in their documentary and other opposing managers. Finally we might see more referees picking up on it. I was reading this article about 'tactical fowling' and whilst I don't think they've used the correct stat for City - they should have used fouls per opposition passes, there was an interesting quote in the article.
One aspect to keep an eye on, though: Manchester City averaged 8.63 fouls a game last term, but with 27 fouls conceded after two games this season (only Sheffield United have more), that average is currently 13.5 per game, compared to Liverpool's 7.5.https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/49371002This suggests to me that players are possibly finding themselves out of position, as discussed above, meaning that passes are miss placed and/or players are having to make increasingly more desperate tackles/fouls. Opposition teams are probably adjusting tactics too, e.g. to stop that daft pull back goal that they keep scoring every week. Either way that stat points to a problem there.
I said last season that beating City to the title will come down to the head-to-heads against them rather than goal difference and that is now the first tie breaker for the league. For me the important thing is not to get beat in those games, last season we didn't play that well at home and were lucky that they missed the penalty but we were unlucky that Fernandinho didn't get sent off. At the Emptihad we played quite well and were again unlucky with the Kompany fowl and offside goal but in reality it could have gone either way. I wonder whether we should have tried to stick at 1-1, be interesting to see if Klopp has us playing cagey or going all out attack like we seem to still do in the Champions league.
https://www.premierleague.com/news/1262217