Manchester City 3 Liverpool 0
It’s going to be a two horse title race this season. One thing we’ve definitely learned this weekend is that Arsenal aren’t going to run away with the league this year as many people thought, some of the football City were playing in the first half was giving me flashbacks of the City teams a few years ago. The perfect example was the first goal from Haaland where O’Reilly has the ball facing his own corner flag, manages to get the ball out to Foden then a minute later after every City player touches the ball Nunes floats a cross to Haaland who gets a bit fortunate with the header to open the scoring.
The Liverpool goal should have stood. We’ve seen a few goals this season that have been disallowed for a player blocking the goalkeepers sight of the ball but I don’t think this was one of them, Donnarumma has a clear sight of the ball from the moment it leaves Van Dijk’s head to it hitting the net regardless to Robertson’s position. The rules are the rules but I don’t think we need to be taking goals away in this instance especially.
Nico Gonzalez is the perfect understudy for Rodri. I think it’s safe to say that jury has been out for Nico Gonzalez since signing for City in January but over the last few weeks he has really started to impress me and other than Doku was the best player on the pitch. With Rodri struggling for fitness since his injury last year this could be the time where Nico Gonzalez stamps his name on that team sheet for Pep.
Doku at his best is magic to watch. Similar to Nico Gonzalez the jury has been out for Jeremy Doku since he’s joined City, that’s not to say that he has not shown bright sparks but consistency has been the problem with Doku since he’s joined City, however this performance is why you stick with players like him who can go and win you the game by himself. There was a point in the second half where Liverpool had to put two men on him and Doku still managed to get past them, the goal was absolutely brilliant and crowned a magical performance.
Where do Liverpool go from here? Liverpool have had some bad performances this year but rarely have I seen them played off the pitch like they were in that 1st half, they looked really leggy and never got control of the game, the Real Madrid game during the week possibly took more out of them than we thought. Florian Wirtz yet again failed to impress apart from a couple of dribbles in the first half and you wonder when he’s going to kick on, Ekitike couldn’t get a kick and Salah once again couldn’t get into the game against Nico O’Reilly who continues to impress at left-back. The international break is coming at a good time for Liverpool in my opinion.