16 Conclusions on Man City 0-2 Liverpool: Salah, De Bruyne, Szoboszlai, Guardiola, ‘Wata’s mindset’ and more

Liverpool know the title is theirs, Mo Salah and Kevin de Bruyne are dealing with impending mid-30s free agency differently and this is beyond Pep Guardiola.

1) For the sport’s most dangerous lead, that was an obscenely, almost offensively comfortable hour-long stroll. Liverpool defended their advantage with as much ludicrous ease as they established it at the formerly impenetrable home of their greatest modern rival, and their bottling title collapse ultimately consisted of two forgivable away draws and a sketchy win.

With half as many shots as Manchester City and a club-record low share of possession in a win, they administered exponentially more damage. Liverpool scored with two of their first three attempts at goal and proceeded with such serenity that from the 75th minute onwards they had three efforts to the one mustered by their impotent, game-chasing hosts.

If there is to be an extended title procession, this was a fitting performance. Liverpool didn’t even bother with the rigmarole of keeping the ball in the corner flag towards the end, instead electing in stoppage time to pass it between the shadows – both literal and figurative – giving vague chase, before still launching attacks in numbers at 2-0. In that moment especially, Manchester City were a flawless characterisation of the rest of the league: not nearly good enough.

2) It was a stark contrast to Liverpool’s last Premier League victory at the Etihad, when Jurgen Klopp secured his second win as manager with what legal obligations still require to be called a swashbuckling, all-action attacking masterclass in November 2015.

For all the club has achieved and won since, their subsequent visits outside of cup competitions had resulted in frustration or disappointment over almost a decade.

In his first Etihad trip, Arne Slot conducted a display of unerring calm, control and efficiency as Liverpool became the first side ever to do the league double over a Pep Guardiola team while not conceding in either game.

Both were stunning statement victories played to the respective manager’s blueprint. That Slot achieved his en route to matching Klopp’s Premier League title haul in his first season is a remarkable feat which has been underplayed and normalised.

3) It does help having one of the league’s greats operating at his irresistible peak. Mo Salah seems to struggle not breaking a record each time he plays nowadays but this match did seem particularly egregious for bar-raising brilliance.

He became – and thanks to Opta for a great deal of these – the first player to score or assist 40 or more goals in two different Premier League seasons; the first player older than 27 to score or assist 40 or more goals in a single Premier League season; the first player to score 25 goals and register 15 assists in a single Premier League season; the first player in Premier League history to score and assist in both games of a season against the reigning champions; Liverpool’s leading assist provider in a single Premier League season.

All that from one game – one half, even – and with 11 matches of the campaign remaining. This is probably already in the top five for greatest individuals seasons in Premier League history and Liverpool have still got Southampton, Leicester and Spurs to play.

Eleven players have scored 11 goals or more in the Premier League this season; Salah has scored and assisted in 11 different games. This is not normal and it needs calling out.

4) Perhaps the most ludicrous statistic from this particular game was that less than a year separates Salah and Kevin de Bruyne: two Premier League legends whose paths could not have diverged more drastically.

As phenomenal as Salah was and is approaching his mid 30s, that age roadblock has caused an emergency stop to De Bruyne’s entire career. He was miserably poor, the first player substituted in what used to be a season-defining clash between two ultra-heavyweights.

While Salah still dominates these games as he always has, De Bruyne’s fade from prominence has been unthinkably stark. An anonymous first half ended with the Belgian cutting inside from the right, unleashing the least convincing dummy ever and then smashing a shot near and ultimately over the corner flag.

Liverpool will remain locked in delicate contract talks with Salah, who can commence in the knowledge he could have done nothing more to increase his value this season; if negotiations between Manchester City and De Bruyne had not already stalled over his own expiring deal, that act might have seen them break down as thoroughly as the man himself.

5) De Bruyne misplaced a pass in the build-up to the opening goal but it was Rico Lewis who conceded the corner under pressure.

Manchester City had enjoyed the better start, played to the backdrop of Gary Neville’s new single “Good Spaces”, ft. Omar Marmoush, but they cannot have expected the league’s worst team at attacking set-pieces to unleash upon them a routine so wonderfully crafted that Nicolas Jover is reported to be considering legal action.

It was certainly weird to see Liverpool score from such a delightful move, with Alexis Mac Allister’s low delivery flicked into Salah’s path by Dominik Szoboszlai. It was stranger still that the cameras didn’t have a mysterious coach to cut to while the commentators freely aired passive-aggressive suspicions about The Modern Game. And worrying for Liverpool’s title contenders – are they in the room with us now? – if they are adding more feathers to an already crowded bow.

6) The defending was suitably diabolical; Manchester City have not conceded more goals in all competitions (61) than any other Premier League side bar Leicester and Southampton this season by accident.

Leaving Salah unmarked in the penalty area seems like a mistake in any situation but the second goal came without the caveat of zonal marking or whatever Manchester City elected to do from that corner.

Twenty minutes later, Salah had the ball on the halfway line. He played it back to Trent Alexander-Arnold, waited briefly and then made the same run behind the defence as Szoboszlai, who noted he was offside and so instead drifted inside to wait for the pass. He actively jogged for about 20 yards without any suggestion an opponent might even notice him, before giving Ederson the eyes and placing his shot into the corner.

One simple ball over the top. No pressure applied to the player passing from deep – and few do that better than Alexander-Arnold. Josko Gvardiol’s weak and entirely ineffective handling of Salah. The absolute lack of responsibility in picking up either Szoboszlai or Curtis Jones, who was waiting behind after bursting forward with not a single player tracking him.

It was abysmal individually and collectively even before considering the six composite defensive parts which occupied the box when Szoboszlai scored cost about £240m. Manchester City can and often do spend what they want but it might require some coaching to extricate themselves from this hole.

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7) “If anyone can do it, then it’s Pep,” said Roy Keane before the game of this Manchester City rebuild and the challenge of restoring them to their former glory.

It is a sentiment which has been echoed far and wide for months but it is once again worth asking: is it really true? Why does this belief persist that Guardiola can simply turn this around and just suddenly sort this?

There are fundamental coaching flaws in this team obvious to the layman and laughably exploitable for experts, issues which have been present for months. The idea Manchester City could throw money at the problem is undermined somewhat by three January signings starting at the Etihad and being dragged down levels rather than pulling the club up. This cannot all be Rodri but even if it is, one absence bringing about a historically poor season reflects dreadfully on everyone involved, damages that previous aura of invincibility and asks uncomfortable questions of the staff who have failed to solve the equation despite being given almost an entire season and a ludicrous amount of patience to do so.

We revert to the point made after the Spurs debacle in November: ‘This is territory so unfamiliar for the manager, coaches and squad that any opponent should face them without any semblance of fear and assumptions of recovery based on the past must be disregarded.’ Guardiola is probably the greatest manager ever, but never before has he faced a situation like this, never mind overcome it.

8) Marmoush was actually decent. Khusanov, too. Perhaps it is unfair to suggest they didn’t improve anything, more that they alone could not hope to oversee the club’s revival.

Guardiola was furious with the former for having strayed offside before finishing brilliantly in the first half, and that frustration at an increasingly problematic tendency is understandable. But Marmoush was bright and easily the biggest threat in Erling Haaland’s absence.

Khusanov, thrown in at the deepest of ends, did remarkably well to stay afloat. He misplaced a single pass, made the most clearances and raced into one particular dumpster fire with a fine tackle after sprinting in from right-back to deny Szoboszlai. Since that nightmare start against Chelsea he has been quietly impressive.

9) That came after Ruben Dias punted the ball into Mateo Kovacic’s back when trying to play the ball out to the wing. Gvardiol was so high up that the deflection immediately created a goalscoring situation as Salah had acres of space to sprint into, with the perennially-sprinting Szoboszlai on the underlap.

Kovacic, again, made no attempt to close Salah and Dias summarily failed to counter Szoboszlai’s movement. These are senior internationals, seasoned and incredibly experienced players, needing to be rescued by a 20-year-old with fewer than 100 senior first-team career appearances, who cannot speak the language in a new league and country. It’s not much short of a shambles.

10) The totemic Ibrahima Konate celebrating conceding a corner was fun, being as it is one of football’s best examples of one of those malleable actions which can be interpreted in whichever way best suits.

In a team this magnificent it is a sign of the elite mentality and concentration required in every second of every game, a thing to be praised and admired. In a struggling and especially calamitous side it would be mocked and ridiculed.

Konate and Virgil van Dijk can do whatever they like, mind. Manchester City had two-thirds of the ball and it is difficult to recall a single even halfway meaningful chance they created.

11) Only two times in Premier League history (Allan Saint Maximin v Leicester in December 2021 and Adama Traore v Watford in January 2020, both 14) has a player completed more dribbles than the 13 mustered by Jeremy Doku at the Etihad. They lost those games too; it is not necessarily the sort of feat which underpins victory.

The Belgian should take some heart from his display but he suffered the most for Haaland’s injury. On a handful of occasions Doku beat Alexander-Arnold or whoever else had the displeasure of being his man and reached the byline only to have a sea of red shirts to aim a final ball at. None of his five crosses found a teammate and looking at the teams, nor were they ever really going to.

12) Liverpool had to work for that clean sheet but it was confirmed in the 74th minute rather than the 90th. With Wataru Endo’s introduction, the game was rendered finished.

His input was crucial, including a couple of tackles around the edge of the area when the hosts were trying to find a way through. Slot recently used “Wata’s mindset” as the example for players to follow in that “for the whole season he just keeps on going, keeps on going, keeps on going and whenever we need him, he’s ready.”

That niche role has been more defined in recent weeks. When Liverpool have a late lead – and they invariably do – Endo is brought on to solidify the scoreline and see it through. In 115 minutes across 12 appearances in the league this season, the midfielder has been on the pitch for just two goals: Diogo Jota making it 5-0 against West Ham in December; and Jacob Greaves scoring a consolation in a 4-1 win in January.

When Endo comes on, you might as well switch off.

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13) He was only continuing the fine work of his teammates. Every outfield Liverpool starter made at least one tackle. In fact, aside from Konate and Jones the rest made two or more. The Reds made exactly as many tackles as in their identical win over Manchester City at Anfield in December, which might ordinarily be passed off as a weird coincidence but cannot be put past Slot as a deliberate tactic.

Manchester City, by contrast, made five tackles between them. While some of that can be explained away by the possession percentages, it encapsulates the lack of resistance Liverpool met when they decided they wanted the ball.

14) The two loudest Manchester City cheers were reserved for a Jones goal being disallowed – after the defence had been sliced open yet again – and forlorn appeals when Alisson handled a ball Kostas Tsimikas had inadvertently deflected high into the air and back to his keeper when trying to intercept a long pass.

It was a painfully nothing performance, not a single part of which will live in the memory beyond a single sleep.

15) Even that disallowed Jones goal was amateurish from Manchester City, perhaps beyond Khusanov cleverly pulling his shoulder back to play Szoboszlai just offside.

The Hungarian had received the ball just past the halfway line before pausing on it, laying it off to Ryan Gravenberch and immediately sprinting to target the space behind a high defensive line. Nico Gonzalez actually looks over his shoulder at Szoboszlai and actively chooses to do nothing, neither tracking him nor telling Nathan Ake to watch him, and not even pressing the ball.

Gravenberch delayed a little too long after a poor touch and that alone rescued the hosts from conceding another basic give-and-go goal.

16) It might be time to acknowledge that this season really could get so much worse for Manchester City. This week has crystallised their inferiority in comparison with the elite in Europe and domestically, and the genuine reality that they are left with is a ridiculous Champions League qualification battle involving Fulham and Brentford that they cannot afford to lose if this rebuild is to continue in earnest.