By the benchmark they have set, Manchester City were terrible at Liverpool – light up front, porous at the back and less than tigerish in midfield – and they need to react quickly
Only four managers have outwitted Pep Guardiola this season, and while Wigan’s Paul Cook, Shakhtar Donetsk’s Paulo Fonseca and Basel’s Raphaël Wicky were perhaps unexpected beneficiaries of propitious circumstances, Jürgen Klopp has done it twice to order.
The stakes could not have been much higher than in the last encounter either, and the emphatic nature of Liverpool’s win in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final gives some credence to Klopp’s insistence that but for Sadio Mané’s unfortunate dismissal at the Etihad in September, Manchester City might not have skewed the balance of this season’s head‑to‑head contest in the Premier League by coasting to a 5-0 victory.
Related: Pep Guardiola’s tactical gamble with Raheem Sterling goes belly-up | Jonathan Wilson
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