TOP DRAW
Man City 2 Liverpool 2: Premier League title race still wide open as Reds fight back TWICE in end-to-end Etihad thriller
CAN these two not just play each other every week?
Given that no other team in the Premier League, perhaps in world football, can expect to lay a glove on them.
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And given that their meetings, with such high stakes and towering quality, are a lavish treat for any lover of the game.
Well, they meet again next Saturday in an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley and it would be a shock if they didn’t face off in Paris on May 28 in a Champions League final as well.
Sadio Mane’s equaliser, in the first minute of the second half, means Liverpool are still targeting the quadruple, while City remain in the hunt for a treble.
Looking at the run-ins for both clubs is almost irrelevant when you absolutely expect both of these sides to beat any of the top flight’s other 18 clubs, home or away, on any given day.
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But City’s fixture list is the gentler of the two, so they may be just the happier of the two sides with this result - despite having a Raheem Sterling ‘winner’ ruled out by a fractional VAR call.
Pep Guardiola’s men led early through Kevin De Bruyne and were pegged back by Diogo Jota before Gabriel Jesus handed them a half-time lead.
So City remain a point clear with seven to go and this is likely to be one of those relentless title races, like the epic of 2019, when Liverpool finished second with a ridiculous 97 points.
While the rivalry between these two clubs over the past four years, has been an epic sporting one, the two managers have rarely done the decent thing and added any decent dollops of spite and mindgames into the mix.
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This was their most significant head-to-head meeting since they began this duopoly - coming as it did so late in the season and with a two-horse race for the title having been established for months.
If the pre-match was weapons-grade, then the tempo and the quality backed it up from the off - especially from City.
Sterling ought to have opened the scoring even before De Bruyne’s early strike.
A headed pass from Kyle Walker, a release ball from De Bruyne and a squared pass from Jesus left the England man one-on-one with Alisson but the Brazilian saved with his feet.
Inside a minute, though, City were in front. The quick thinking of Bernardo Silva with a tap-and-go free-kick found De Bruyne, who rounded Fabinho and saw his shot deflect off Joel Matip and the inside of the far post.
It was the Belgian’s sixth goal in as many games.
Liverpool, so used to winning, brushed off their setback and were level by the 13th minute.
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Klopp’s full-backs combined brilliantly here - Andy Robertson crossing deep from the left, Trent Alexander-Arnold cutting back on the volley and Jota’s first-time shot going in off the body of Ederson, who might have done better.
Ederson was having a mad five minute and almost allowed a back-pass to roll over the goal-line.
But City were soon right back at it - their diagonals out of defence were visionary and the inter-play of their little men up front was saucy in the extreme.
De Bruyne swivelled and shot into the side-netting before City were ahead again, eight minutes before the break.
Cancelo’s shot was deflected on to the post and though the resulting corner was cleared, City’s Portuguese full-back swung in a cross which left Jesus in glorious isolation, allowing him to lift his shot over Alisson at angle.
The quality of the defending was also outstanding at times - a Robertson crucial interception to take the ball off Sterling’s toes was quickly followed by Aymeric Laporte performing heroics to deny Jota in the last ditch.
City had dominated large periods of the first half and Klopp clearly wasn’t going to stand for it.
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The German sent his men out early, with rockets up their backsides, and inside a minute they had caught City cold and equalised.
Mo Salah’s angled pass took out the entire City defence and Mane, cutting in from the left, swept it home first time to celebrate his 30th birthday with a flourish.
Klopp’s men, unusually cowed and occasionally rocky before the break, continued to show the greater intent.
But then City thought they had taken the lead again on 63 minutes when Sterling drilled past Alisson, only for VAR to rule that he had leaned marginally offside when Rodri released his through-ball.
Salah cut in and had a shot deflected wide off Laporte - with the corner somehow not awarded.
Then, when Jesus shot into the side-netting when he ought to have centred, a telling moment in the technical area, where both Guardiola and Klopp were both seen doing their conkers, gesticulating wildly in a choreographed display of the futility of demanding absolute footballing perfection.
Klopp sent on Luis Diaz, Guardiola released Riyad Mahrez - and Liverpool’s manic pressing was forcing an increasing number of City errors.
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Guardiola, increasingly agitated, then gave some sort of rough Turkish massage to Cancelo as the full-back took a throw-in.
Mahrez clipped the post from a long-range free-kick and then lofted over when De Bruyne released him with on the final attack of the match.
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