Rarely can Jurgen Klopp have been as delighted to be proven so gloriously, emphatically wrong.
Before this latest meeting between the Premier League’s most prominent powers of recent times, the Liverpool boss declared his team simply couldn’t compete with Manchester City.
It was, of course, in reference to the limitless funds lavished on the Etihad club by their Abu Dhabi owners when compared to the more frugal approach of Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group.
AS IT HAPPENED: Liverpool vs Man City score updates and analysis from Anfield
LFC RATINGS: Liverpool player ratings as Mohamed Salah and two others brilliant vs Man City
But the comments could easily have applied to matters on the field given the way the season had panned out until this raucous afternoon, the Reds going into the game a whopping 13 points behind Pep Guardiola’s champions.
However, as the City boss pointed out to the home crowd during one of several flashpoints, this is Anfield. And, as his side knows all too well, something special can happen here.
Rarely does this fixture disappoint. VAR interventions, disallowed goals, a red card for Klopp, great saves, near misses, controversies, bust-ups, all played in front of a crackling atmosphere. And that was just the second half.
Mohamed Salah’s supremely-taken strike on 76 minutes, racing away to convert Alisson Becker’s long ball in a strike not dissimilar to one against Manchester United almost three years earlier, may have earned Liverpool a much-needed and deserved Premier League victory.
Even without that, though, the Reds had shown, even if only to themselves, that they still deserve to be considered among the elite, even if they have, for varying reasons, fallen way short of their standards for much of the campaign.
Bodies were put on the line, the intensity returned, a chucked-together defence brilliant in earning only a third clean sheet of the campaign. And there was no little quality when it mattered, not least Salah's crowing moment. The critics, who have been rubbing their hands in delight at the prospect of putting the boot in, now look even more ridiculous.
Klopp was right to joke on Friday this was never going to be a title decider. Liverpool are already too far behind to be part of that conversation, the top four the limit of their Premier League aim this season.
But this was an afternoon when the Reds remembered who they are, embracing again their vaunted identity. Hey, if only they could play City every week...
READ NEXT
- Gary Neville believes Liverpool fans' 'strange' behaviour confirms Man City change
- Liverpool fans say same thing about Martin Tyler commentary after disallowed Man City goal
- Why Phil Foden's goal was disallowed during Liverpool vs Manchester City
- Why Jurgen Klopp was sent off during Liverpool's win vs Manchester City
- What Pep Guardiola said to Anfield crowd after Phil Foden goal disallowed vs Liverpool
