Youngster makes the difference as Manchester City pull well clear of Liverpool – both in the match and league tableLet us take a moment to consider Phil Foden’s surging run. Never mind for now the goal he would score 10 minutes later to kill this game.Park that exhilarating, high-craft goal. OK, stop looking at the goal for a moment. Related: Manchester City hammer sorry Liverpool at Anfield after Alisson errors Related: Liverpool 1-4 Manchester City: Premier League – as it happened Continue reading...
Mohamed Salah’s sublime skill saw off West Ham but it would not have been possible without Liverpool’s versatile captainNine minutes: Mohamed Salah gave the ball away. West Ham advanced down the left. Salah charged back, which is usually a sign he has done something for which he feels he needs to make amends. But he couldn’t recover in time.Michail Antonio was already moving at pace when Trent Alexander-Arnold got to him, and was able to sling a dangerous cross into the box. Tomas Soucek, the Czech Fellaini, rumbled into the penalty area. He didn’t have to check his stride. Neck muscles flexed, he readied himself for a fourth headed goal of the season. And suddenly there was Jordan Henderson, nipping...
Klopp has stuck with a high line and hard press while others have gone conservative and win at Spurs brings far brighter feelIs it done? Have Liverpool, after 40 days without a Premier league win, returned from the wilderness with Thursday’s 3-1 victory over Tottenham? Is that it, doubts over, confidence restored? Certainly the swagger with which Liverpool saw out the game made it hard to understand just how they have failed to score in four league games, how they have somehow let nine points slip in five games against West Brom, Newcastle, Southampton, Manchester United and Burnley.Was it just a blip? Just one of those things? Given Liverpool won the shot count in all five of those matches, was...
Rhys Williams had a difficult game against Manchester United but the fact he played at all implies a flaw in the Anfield systemThree minutes into the second half at Old Trafford something happened that was simultaneously startling, avoidable, unfortunate, and also crushingly inevitable. Manchester United’s second goal in this fun, highly watchable 3-2 FA Cup fourth-round win will be cast as a the fruit of a Rhys Williams mistake.Correctly so: it was a horrible mistake. Rumbling back to cut out a diagonal pass from Mason Greenwood, Liverpool’s centre‑back scuffed a miskicked clearance that ran straight into Marcus Rashford’s path, leaving him a clear run on goal. Related: Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes sinks Liverpool in FA Cup thriller Related: What does...
Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s side are better able to adapt to the bizarre circumstances of this season while Liverpool, a team with a defined way of playing, are strugglingDid Alex Ferguson have a “philosophy”? Perhaps, over the 39 years between him taking his first job at East Stirlingshire and him retiring in 2013, it is possible to pick out some essential principles, but fundamentally he changed according to circumstance. He did not formulate and then enact some grand theory of how football should be played; his greatest assets were his capacity to organise, to motivate and to evolve.Yet recently, the assumption has been that managers must be philosophers: Pep Guardiola with his juego de posición, Jürgen Klopp and the German school...