Manchester City couldn’t offer an attacking threat without Erling Haaland. Manchester City take one season off and the Premier League is done and dusted by February – what was that about boring?. Liverpool enjoyed a feeling many have forgotten at the Etihad but Blues are sick and tired of the same performance every week, with the latest 2-0 defeat a predictable result of uninspiring attacking play coupled with defensive mistakes. The longer it goes on, the lower the chance of the individuals who continue to underperform staying at the football club.. City used to make complicated football look simple, and now they make the basics look difficult. Liverpool are the best team in the league this season with the top scorer, yet it is so much easier for them when Mo Salah is left unmarked in the middle of the penalty area from a corner.. Unlike Real a few days ago, this didn’t start off as a complete surrender. The Blues took the game to the leaders from the start, with Jeremy Doku beating Trent Alexander-Arnold multiple times in the opening minutes as a hungry City side looked to show they could cope better without their injured No.9 Erling Haaland.. That only makes it more frustrating though when good work is undone so easily and quickly. Liverpool had done well to keep City at bay, and the same couldn’t be said for the individual mistakes or collective shoddiness that allowed the opening goal with any aggression in the press undone by feebleness in defence.. Rico Lewis was guilty again of losing possession from a harmless position to concede the corner, yet even before then Guardiola had fumed at a Kevin De Bruyne pass into the final third that didn’t find its man. Once the ball crossed into the City half, it wouldn’t return until after Salah’s goal.. City had taken the lead at Anfield last season thanks to a clever set-piece routine, executed by De Bruyne and John Stones. That spoke of a team in a good moment able to find important gains in a match in a way that the lead up to the Liverpool first here – with De Bruyne erring and Stones out injured again – highlighted just how far the Blues have fallen.. In a campaign of lows, this isn’t just the first time Liverpool have done the double over Guardiola’s City but the first time he has ever lost to them at the Etihad. Having always had the better of the rivalry and dominated the trophy count, this has been a time for having their medicine shoved down their throat.. Being outthought can be as costly as outfought, and even the City positives became stretched as the game went on. Liverpool didn’t seem too bothered at Doku shredding Alexander-Arnold every time when it never resulted in Alisson being seriously tested, while for the second time in five City starts Marmoush saw a goal cancelled out by being needlessly offside.. It was only 1-0 then, and soon after a simple ball over the top allowed Salah to tee up Dominik Szoboszlai for the second before half-time. An away end that had sang about winning the league at Goodison Park before being denied by a late equaliser could not believe how easily they were strolling to a title-winning moment at the Etihad.. In a flat second-half, James McAtee coming on for De Bruyne as the first change felt like another sign of the Belgian’s era being over and Ruben Dias blasting a ball against Mateo Kovacic to create a Liverpool attack that nearly gave the visitors a third was embarrassing. City were very quickly second-best in the game and never looked like changing that.. The team have started talking about the past more in their recent struggles, with Guardiola mentioning again this week his belief that nobody would top the achievements of his side between 2017 and 2024. Two banners in the stadium before kick-off referenced the four consecutive league titles, with one playing on Liverpool’s previous mantra of ‘this means more’.. That’s all well and good, but between now and the end of the season City have to show why their era will not be permanently consigned to history as teams around them overtake them. There wasn’t much against Liverpool to show that major changes are not still needed to right a City ship that has steered badly off course.. Top four, or top five given England will almost certainly get an extra place in next season’s Champions League, still looks a certainty. Nobody overtook City in fourth this week despite them losing, and Arsenal and Nottingham Forest above them both lost.. Article continues below. Give this team long weeks on the training ground, with no midweek matches to disrupt their time and prevent injured players from recovering their fitness properly, and they should walk into Champions League qualification with plenty of matches to spare. Even with their issues, they should be more than capable of not making basic errors to give goals away every week though and that has proven beyond them.. Four in a row may never be repeated, but if Guardiola wants to make it seven in nine next season this level of performance cannot be accepted.
