On these rare occasions when Manchester City suffer defeat, but particularly when that defeat comes in either the knockout stages of the Champions League or at Anfield, it is commonplace for the blame to fall on Pep Guardiola. The buck is not passed around as much as it is delivered directly to his door. You know the argument by now – that Guardiola overthinks these games – and whatever psychological holds these settings are supposed to have over the finest coaching mind of his generation, they translate first into his team selection, then into events out on the pitch.
There was a temptation to revisit that old theme after a defeat to Liverpool that felt familiar in a lot of ways, from how the Premier League champions succumbed to a wild, furious atmosphere and the manner of Mohamed Salah’s winning goal, scored on a simple and preventable counter-attack.
City did not play well, certainly not to their usual standards. It was put to Guardiola in his post-match press conference that despite ending the day with close to two-thirds of possession and managing 16 attempts on Alisson’s goal, they had not created much in the way of clear-cut scoring opportunities. “Do you know how many chances we had in Anfield? We had four or five or six or seven chances in front of the keeper,” came the response.
Perhaps in the white heat of an Anfield touchline it felt like that but, in reality, City mustered three shots from either inside or on the edge of Liverpool’s six-yard box. All of them were headers. For a team that has been scoring at will, averaging more than three-and-a-half goals per game, this was a relatively muted display in attack.
What was to blame? With Guardiola, the first thing to fall under the microscope is always the system. In possession, City effectively played with a back three, a box midfield in front, two wingers staying high and wide and Erling Haaland up top. On the pitch, it looked very different from the nominal 4-3-3 shape we have come to expect them to play in.
But this was not a grand departure from what City usually do, certainly not in recent weeks since defensive injuries started forcing Guardiola to make do and mend. There were certainly not enough differences to amount to overthinking. In fact, perhaps the only significant change from last weekend’s comfortable 4-0 win over Southampton was with Joao Cancelo, who was still taking up a very advanced position but playing on the right rather than the left.
Before Phil Foden’s disallowed goal and particularly during the first half, it was not uncommon to see City attacking down Liverpool’s right-hand side – perhaps looking to recreate Foden’s mismatch against James Milner from last season’s corresponding fixture, only against an even older Milner. On the opposite flank was Cancelo, often entirely unmarked and standing on the shoulder of the last defender.
On several City attacks in that first half, Guardiola stood with his arm outstretched pointing at all of the space Cancelo was in, only to then turn to his bench in frustration when his quasi-right winger did not receive the ball. Cancelo stopped for a short chat with his manager at one point, seemingly offering to drop back into a more reserved position, only to be told to remain higher up the pitch.
Much of Guardiola’s success has been built on tilting the pitch in this way, creating overloads on one side to quickly exploit space on the other. It was there to exploit at Anfield, particularly while the game was still goalless. And as if Cancelo alone was not enough of a threat to Liverpool in that much space, Kevin De Bruyne was also operating close by, playing in the inside-right channel.
Still, Guardiola spent much of that first half with his arm extended, pointing to where the ball needed to be played, only for it not to be. At half-time, only Haaland had seen fewer touches of the ball than Cancelo and De Bruyne among City’s outfield players. The same was still true at the final whistle. City’s two most creative players struggled to get into the game throughout. Foden, meanwhile, had the most touches among City’s attack as his teammates attempted to engineer a mismatch with Milner that never transpired.
Perhaps this was a deliberate ploy but Guardiola’s touchline gesticulations – before he became swept up in the pantomime of the day – suggested not. City’s brightest moments that were not disallowed for a foul in the build-up largely came down that right-hand side too, whether that be Haaland’s header into Alisson’s hands from a De Bruyne cross in the first half, or Virgil van Dijk’s clearance of a Cancelo cross over his own crossbar late on with Haaland ready to pounce.
Rather than the classic failure of a new Guardiola set-up, this result felt more like a failure to execute on part of City’s players, as well as successful rearguard action on the part of Liverpool’s. Their 37 per cent share of possession was their lowest at Anfield in four-and-a-half years in the Premier League and their lowest against City at home since welcoming them in early 2018. That day, a 4-3 win kick-started a rivalry that has defined the English top flight ever since. Liverpool breathed new life into this contest by finding an old way to win it while City found a new, different way to lose.
