Is the win against Man City a turning point for Liverpool?

Last weekend, another duel was played between great rivals, teams that on paper have the best squads and that have been fighting for the title in the Premier League for the last few seasons. Once again, Liverpool proved to be the most difficult opponent for Manchester City. The hero of the match was Mohamed Salah who did great after a fantastic assist from Alisson. With the narrow victory, Liverpool inflicted their first defeat on Manchester City in the Premier League since February 19 when City were defeated by Tottenham. After that, the current champion won as many as 21 victories. With this victory, Liverpool ended an unpleasant streak of three games without a win in the Premier League.

Manchester City failed to do what Arsenal, Brighton or Everton did. The team from the Etihad failed to remain unbeaten at Anfield. It seems that Liverpool is slowly getting into the right form. The Reds made an excellent introduction to the Champions League before this match, having defeated Rangers with an incredible 7-1. Of course, Rangers and Manchester City cannot be compared, but today it is not easy for anyone to score seven goals. Liverpool clearly fell apart in that game after their poor start to the season. Could a win against Manchester City completely turn the current season around? The team from Anfield is still far from the fight for the title, considering that they are 10 points behind the rival they defeated on Sunday, although they have a game in hand.

Currently, the first-placed Arsenal is a huge 14 points away, and in the penultimate round they defeated Liverpool in a direct duel. Liverpool is known as a team that never gives up. We all remember the legendary final of the Champions League in Istanbul when they defeated Milan after a great comeback. Liverpool will not give up this season either. And in the last season, City had a big advantage at one point, but it melted over time and the question of the champion was solved only in the last round, when in the end Liverpool almost won the title instead of City. We will see how long Arsenal can play at this level considering that they have suffered only one defeat in ten games so far and that is actually the only game they have not won.

It is certain that the victory against Manchester City will give Liverpool additional confidence before the continuation of the season. In fact, not even the first third of the championship has been played yet, and anything can happen until the end of the league. Liverpool started this season like some of those seasons seven, eight years ago, when there were very sad years for Liverpool fans. Two seasons ago, Liverpool finally became Premier League champions after many years of waiting and the fans’ appetites grew. Liverpool are expected to battle City for the title every year. For a long time, the city rival of the mentioned team is not the main rival of Liverpool. Even this season, it does not seem that Manchester United could join the fight for the highest goals. A victory against City will be a good boost for Liverpool, who will try to close the gap to the World Cup as much as possible.

Liverpool could perhaps be the biggest loser of the World Cup being held in November as they seem to be slowly finding the right rhythm, and in a few weeks they will have to go on holiday. What is certainly a good thing for Liverpool is that Mohamed Salah will not play in the World Cup as Egypt failed to qualify for this major competition. Salah will therefore have the opportunity to recharge his batteries and wait restfully for the rest of the season. What is not good news for Liverpool is that Diogo Jota, a guy known for his great head game even though he is not very tall due to calf injury, will not play for Liverpool in the next period, and therefore for Portugal at the World Cup. It’s really a huge loss for both teams. Since the beginning of the season, both Luis Dias and Arthur have been injured.

These are certainly things that pose a problem for the fight in the long run. The season is long and every new injury will give Jurgen Klopp a new headache. Klopp before the game with City was not too optimistic considering that he said that Manchester City has the best team in the world with the best football player at the moment called Erling Haaland. Haaland is really playing great at the start of the season and many predict that he will break the record for the number of goals scored in a season in the Premier League, which is currently held by Andrew Cole and Alan Shearer with a total of 34 goals scored. Despite the fact that Manchester City currently has the best striker in the world, he failed to score a single goal at Anfield. Of course, Manchester City is not only Haaland, and when we look at all those names in their lineup, we can’t help but get chills.

That team really strikes fear into the bones of the opponent, but not Liverpool. Liverpool recorded their third consecutive victory against City, who have not defeated the team from Anfield in the last five games in all competitions. Manchester City’s last win was against Liverpool in February 2021 when they won convincingly at Anfield 4-1. City did not score a goal for the second game in a row because they did not manage to beat the opponent’s goalkeeper even in the Champions League match against Copenhagen. Although many pundits will say that City currently have the best team in the world, that team has shown itself to be vulnerable. No team can be expected to win non-stop, including City.

With this victory, Liverpool showed that they can handle the two-time back-to-back champions. What is important is that in the rest of the season, Liverpool does not allow to lose games or draw with teams whose quality is lower than their composition. There is clearly room for improvement. At the beginning of this season, Liverpool lost Sadio Mane, which is certainly a big handicap, but the expensive Darwin Nunez, who excelled last season in Benfica, arrived in his place. He is not doing very well in England at the moment. He scored two goals in the first two games before making a big mistake against Crystal Palace when he received a red card and was suspended for three games. He waited for another goal until the game with Rangers, and then scored another against Arsenal.

It seems that he is slowly waking up and that a lot can still be expected from him in the rest of the season. Nunez, like Haaland, is a very young player, but he will have to show that he is a player for the big stage and hopefully he will not be another mistake by Liverpool when it comes to transfers, and those mistakes have happened quite often in the past when Liverpool were not a team that has been playing at an enviable level for the last few seasons. It was expected that Nunez should push Firmino out of the team, but so far the Brazilian has given the team much more than his South American counterpart. Virgil Van Dijk, after unconvincing games in the previous part of the season, showed why he is one of the best defenders in the world against Manchester City.

No need to waste words on Salah. He is definitely the leader of this team and a guy who can decide a game with one move. If there are similar moves in the rest of the season, Liverpool will certainly be in the game for a high ranking, but of course nothing depends on them because they will have to wait for Arsenal and City’s mistakes. In the following rounds, Liverpool has a mostly easy schedule, and their most difficult game will be against Tottenham a week before going on break due to the World Cup. We will see if the game against City was just a momentary blip or a prelude to some big winning streak later in the season. If you want to enjoy the great atmosphere at Anfield, but also on the away pitch, buy Liverpool tickets 2022/23.