The title procession can begin. Eleven points clear with 12 games left for their nearest rivals, Liverpool aren’t going to let this slip now. On the basis of this authoritative 2-0 win at the Etihad Stadium, it will be a matter of when not if they reach the unmatchable 90 points.
Certainly, if Mohamed Salah keeps this up, the title will be won in time for Arsenal to give them a guard of honor at Anfield in May. For the 11th time this season, the presumptive Ballon d’Or winner graced a game with a goal and assist. The previous high watermark in a Premier League campaign was 11. It is February.
This was not one of those games where everything flowed through Mohamed Salah. Indeed, in the 10 minutes before he opened the scoring — a shot deflected off Nathan Ake after a cute low Alexis Mac Allister corner had been flicked around the corner by Dominik Szoboszlai — Liverpool’s danger man had had four touches, no completed passes and nothing else of note. On this season’s form, he only needs one opening.
Give him two then and Liverpool would have a cushion. More than 20 minutes without a shot for the visitors but one moment of lax defending for Jeremy Doku gave Trent Alexander-Arnold time to look up and pick a pass. Whenever that happens the opponent is always on the back foot. Salah glided away from Josko Gvardiol. Both he and Ake were intent on sending Salah to the byline, a precise touch with the right foot and they were out of the game. Szoboszlai was then on hand to sweep home.
From there on, not a lot for either side. VAR intervened to deny both sides offside goals, Omar Marmoush for City in the first, Curtis Jones denied what would have been the indisputable match-winner in the second. Even without that headroom, Liverpool never felt threatened by a team that has turned so many of their dreams into nightmares.
In that sense, this was not just the Salah show. The absence of one big star in Erling Haaland was certainly felt. For two and a half seasons City have built an attack to funnel chances towards the best No. 9 in the world. Without him, it really didn’t matter what they got right. Doku ended this game with 13 successful take-ons down the left, the most in a Premier League game this season, and yet without the big guy to hit in the middle, those darts to the byline resulted in just two chances created.
Nearly two-thirds of the possession was City’s. Their center back Abdukhodir Khusanov had as many final third touches as Luis Diaz. Look at those sort of metrics and you would convince yourself this was a familiar meeting between these two at the Etihad, the sort that Pep Guardiola never really loses. This time, however, their attack was toothless. Sixteen shots worth 0.63 xG — nearly a third of which came from one Rico Lewis effort — is as bad a shooting display as City have had in years. Only when Marmoush was a yard or more offside could they craft a really good shot.
Liverpool weren’t much better but, well, they had Salah.
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City may have been the chief architects of their problems in front of goal, but Liverpool were only too willing to help them out. Ryan Gravenberch and Mac Allister were composure personified in front of the back four. Nothing got down the middle. Everyone in a red shirt was prepared to drop back and do a shift. Salah’s most outstanding moments might have been his goal contributions but the diligence he showed in the 82nd minute to steal possession back for his side and drive through bodies to get out.
When such diligence is being shown across the side, the credit belongs on the touchline. Before too long Arne Slot will enter a select club of five coaches who have won the Premier League in their first season in England. Salah will be garlanded with every award and rightly so; his manager will certainly feel that he put his best players in the best positions to earn the big honor. That in itself is a coaching triumph.
From the outset, this has had the look of an ego-free triumph. Slot has felt no compunction to rip up Jurgen Klopp’s XI or to demand his own players. A degree more caution, a tweak to the midfield to add solidity, and this side are back as something around the best side in Europe. For the first time in the 20 years the statistic has been tracked, they can win a top-flight game with 34 percent possession.
Not that this is all simplistic. Slot judged his system to a tee, Jones and Szoboszlai deployed centrally to block off City’s early build-up, to fly up and down the pitch and attack the box while the bulk of the build-up went down the flanks. What approximated an opposition midfield — mostly Nico Gonzalez, occasionally Lewis and Kevin De Bruyne — was overwhelmed.
So often it has been City who were the architects of Liverpool’s pain. Salah and company have been great, it’s just the guys in sky blue have been that scintilla better. How sweet then, that the moment when it all became inevitable came at the Etihad. A champions performance for a champion in waiting.
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