Napoli have had the better of Liverpool in most of their past four meetings, something future opponents could learn fromFor the opening hour at Anfield the Napoli players must have been tempted to wonder, once again, what exactly all the fuss is around here. Take to the field expecting the red swarm, the hammers of the Premier League, a process of extreme thrashmetal disintegration. And what do you get?Not quite that, it turns out. Napoli have done this four times now in two years. In the first half they had the Premier League leaders pinned, rhythms stilled by the swarm of light-blue shirts around their usual passing triangles. It took Liverpool 35 minutes to muster their first effort on target....
Klopp smiled as he said Liverpool would target 100 points to win the title but his side are on course after a blistering startWhen Liverpool missed out on the title by a single point last season it was being said with a mixture of amusement and admiration around Anfield that Manchester City had raised the bar so high it was going to take a century of points to be sure of winning the Premier League.It seemed somehow ludicrous that a side could reach 97 points and still miss out on the league championship, when totals as low as 75 and 78 had sufficed in the past and no previous runner-up had gone beyond 90. Pep Guardiola, finding himself having to...
Emery’s Arsenal have lost their direction and Spurs’ problems start at full-back but Burnley’s Dwight McNeil is on songRiyad Mahrez impressed only in spells during his first season at Manchester City but, with Leroy Sané felled by a cruciate injury in August’s Community Shield victory, the onus was on the £60m man to step up. An imperious performance at West Ham on the opening day of the season suggested he would do exactly that, yet he has started only four league games since – two of those being defeats – and with his side desperate for goals in a critical game at Anfield he was not called on at all. Mahrez remains a magical player on his day but the...
For all the protests from Pep Guardiola and Manchester City, this match was not settled by marginal refereeing decisionsIt is the hardest thing in any sport to make astonishingly difficult things look astonishingly simple. With 13 minutes gone at Anfield Liverpool produced a piece of play that seemed to stop the day, a perfect little miniature of bold, simple lines, carved across the pitch, like a Miro line drawing.It took six seconds, four touches and three diagonal movements for the ball to travel from right-back to left wing, back to inside-right, then back again into the left-hand corner of the net. The moment of ignition came from Trent Alexander‑Arnold, who looked up and played one of those lofted cross‑kicks, full-back...
Early-season tussle between title rivals will see Guardiola turning up the intensity and going the Full MidfielderIt is, of course, absurd to talk about title deciders in early November. As Liverpool and Manchester City prepare to meet at Anfield on Sunday afternoon there will be a familiar urge to garland the occasion with superheated froth, to lean across the lighted TV plinth and pronounce in stentorian tones on the biggest, the most bowel-frazzling, the Superest of all Super Sundays.We know the drill by now. The Premier League is at bottom an act of salesmanship. And, like any good salesman, it’s always closing, November title deciders and all. Related: Five key questions for Manchester City before facing Liverpool | Jamie Jackson...