by There was a path between Julián Álvarez, Manual Akanji and Rúben Dias and it led just inside the left post, but it was almost impossibly narrow. Trent-Alexander Arnold directed his shot at him. By design? By instinct? By luck? It was very difficult to say, and as a result Manchester City did not win a 24th consecutive home game and Liverpool managed to defend the record set by former manager Tom Watson during his time at Sunderland.
More so – assuming Joël Matip and Dominik Szoboszlai aren’t particularly motivated by the honor of a bowler hat, smoking 19th-century cigarettes with sardonic mustaches – City pulled off a second straight game and so the dream of a title race extended right into the second third of the season. Of course, that speaks mainly to the regret of City’s excellence under Pep Guardiola and the prospect of them putting together a run at some point that will see them clear of the pack. If they are ahead by Christmas, the second half of the season could be a spectacle.
But City was not remorseless, far from it. It’s unfortunate that a side has to be near perfect to even have a chance of winning, but Liverpool got the draw and created more chances without playing very well themselves. Although he made a couple of fine saves, Alisson was extremely quick, his uneasiness with the ball at his feet adding to the growing evidence that the need to play back-to-back goalkeepers may be gone lapsed from intriguing counterintuitive gambling into indulgence. . As Jorge Valdano said last season, perhaps the strangest consequence of football’s data revolution is that teams seem far more prepared to go into their own box than their opponents.
Often their press was just the suffocating multi-layered blanket it should have been. For all the praise for Liverpool’s revamped midfield – and it’s working much better than last season – there were still plenty of occasions when City’s long ball from deep left players running on an exposed backline Liverpool, a pattern that is only partially explained. with Ederson’s great passing range.
The result was an unexpected and unexpected game, which was particularly surprising given the unusual openness City had shown in their previous outing, the 4-4 draw at Chelsea. More than anything else, Guardiola demands control: when there was such a lack, the assumption, especially in the case of a match against the team that most consistently challenged his City, was that he would prioritize.
Guardiola is overwhelmed by counter-attacks. Most of those hours of overthinking ahead of the Champions League tie were caused by efforts to eliminate counter-attacking threats. His insistence on setting up the play so his team can defend against a potential counter is why Guardiola’s sides rarely score on the counter themselves, why he has talked about building 15 passes for his team to organize themselves for attack. And yet Liverpool not only equalized on the counter but had numerous other opportunities to do so.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Liverpool should have won – they lost the xG 1.3 to 0.6 according to Opta’s measure – but equally there were at least four moments where a better touch, a better run could have been or a better decision from Darwin Núñez to open. City up. And that’s not common in City. Something is going wrong in midfield.
It’s probably as simple as John Stones being out, although his presence on the bench suggests he’s about to return. Álvarez’s use as a central midfielder and second attacking striker means that an additional midfielder needs to be found from somewhere, and Stones has done an admirable job moving out of the center to work alongside Rodri. Akanji, it must be said, is still learning the role. If Ilkay Gündogan hadn’t left the club, in the summer it might not have been as significant, but right now City look vulnerable without Rodri and one or more Stones.
The other option is to leave Álvarez out, or start him from the side in a more orthodox 4-3-3, with Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva alongside Rodri in midfield, but Guardiola often seems to against the idea of Foden as a center. player. At the moment, he is probably the necessary counterweight, a passer who brings a degree of certainty, to the darts and bursts and flourishes of Jérémy Doku on the left. The Belgian was responsible for 68% of City’s dribbles on Saturday, his concentration and the regularity with which he loses the ball – an inevitable consequence of someone who dribbles so much – a strange departure from Guardiola’s model of control and priority of possession.
We’ve been here before, of course. The template is familiar: The city looks fragile in autumn and then strikes the kind of form in spring that worries Tom Watson. Even in this phase of mild uncertainty and without an injured Kevin De Bruyne, they are a point off the top. They are still their favourites.
But for a goal not allowed for the slightest pressure, they would have beaten Liverpool. If Stones is back against Tottenham next week, there may be a return to calm in midfield. But in the last few games, the discipline that Guardiola so maintains has abandoned them.
