Manchester City haven’t had to listen to the gloats of opposing supporters too often at the Etihad, but as the final minutes of this contest played out to the sound of Liverpool fans singing about winning the league it was impossible not to feel that an era was coming to an end.. Pep Guardiola’s side are still champions in name, but their chances of making it five in a row have long since ended. They had become disruptors this season, but losing 5-1 to Arsenal and 2-0 to Liverpool in the space of three weeks means they haven’t even been able to do that.. Throw in a pair of defeats to Real Madrid between those games, and the evidence that this champion City team has gone past its sell-by date is undeniable. Their title will be heading to Merseyside in May, and City will revert to being the hunters rather than the hunted.. Maybe they will relish the change in status, but they will also need another injection of fresh energy. They have been dealt a bad hand this season – and the absence of Erling Haaland against Liverpool on Sunday was the latest example – but they can no longer ride with the punches.. The loss of Haaland in Madrid was a brutal blow for City, and he wasn’t even fit enough for the bench against Liverpool. With Ruben Dias only amongst the substitutes, the Blues were without their best defender and their best striker.. In previous years, they have shrugged off these sorts of problems. This is a team that won titles without a left-back and a striker. They have always found a way because the collective has been so strong, and the mentality has been faultless.. This season, both are beginning to slip. It’s worth acknowledging just how well City has done under Guardiola to maintain its brilliance season after season. Supporters unveiled a ‘This Means Four’ banner before kick-off and that unprecedented achievement shows how hard it is for great teams to go to the well again and again.. Liverpool have shown that themselves. This has been a Premier League rivalry for the ages, but twice under Jurgen Klopp the perennial challengers fell away alarmingly. They recovered the season after on both occasions, but sustaining those levels is so difficult to do.. It’s why Guardiola has always said how proud he is that ‘we are always there’. By this, he means always competing for titles or trophies come spring. That won’t be the case this season.. If City hadn’t been so badly damaged by injuries, perhaps they would have, but the absence of Dias and Haaland did show here that this squad now needs conditions in their favour to win games, when for years they have just found their way.. For much of this game, they were better from box to box. They had a lot of territory and possession around the Liverpool area. Plenty of their players had good individual games. But collectively, their performance looked out of sync. They were outclassed in both boxes.. Liverpool were stronger, more organised defensively, and more ruthless when they got forward. That was the difference in a game that was otherwise quite even.. The battle down City’s left summed it up in many ways. Jeremy Doku showed he had the beating of Trent Alexander-Arnold inside the first three minutes, but every time the Belgian got the ball against the right-back, he didn’t just have Alexander-Arnold to beat. Ibrahima Konate would come across from his central defensive position and at least one of Ryan Gravenberch or Dominik Szoboszlai would drop back as well.. There was little point Doku trying to beat his man, because Liverpool had so much support around him. It was an example of collective defending and collective responsibility and it neutered what should have been a real route to goal for City.. At the other end, Mohamed Salah had Josko Gvrardiol’s number, and too often, when he did beat him he had wide open space to run into. Salah found it easy to isolate the Croatian because Nico Gonzalez had so many fires to put out in midfield and Nathan Ake was either unable or unwilling to get across in support.. Salah scored one, set the other up, and sent Liverpool to within touching distance of City’s title. That will sting at the Etihad.
