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FULL TIME: Manchester City 4-1 Liverpool
City have now won their last three games to the cumulative score of 17-1. That’s why they’re champions.
90 min +2: Oxlade-Chamberlain works his way down the right and crosses low. Alisson smothers. That’s about as much as Liverpool have achieved in attack during the second half of a very lop-sided match.
90 min: There will be three added minutes.
88 min: Grealish makes way for Palmer. As he departs, he’s named player of the match by BT Sport pundit Lucy Ward.
86 min: Liverpool are now in Rabble Mode. Nunez ships possession out on the right, allowing Mahrez to stride clear and cross. Alisson deals with that situation. Grealish comes again down the left. He should be stripped of possession, but Henderson, the head addled, simply gifts him the ball back. Konate sorts this one out. The visitors hanging on, in the hope of retaining at least a scrap of dignity.
84 min: Nothing comes of the corner. Liverpool just want to get out of Dodge. City could keep playing all afternoon. They stroke the ball around. The crowd enjoy the spectacle in the Spanish style.
83 min: City win a corner on the right. Before they can take it, Silva comes on for Rodri. Liverpool meanwhile sacrifice Gakpo for Milner, the erstwhile City player getting pelters as he takes to the pitch.
82 min: De Bruyne loops a cross in from the right. Grealish, running in from the left, creams a volley towards the bottom left. Alisson parries with his chest. That would have been a hell of a goal.
81 min: City have made exactly twice as many passes as Liverpool: 508 to 254. A statistic that will give Klopp pause.
80 min: “You’re getting sacked in the morning.” The City fans serenading Klopp. It’s a bit of a bold prediction, to be fair, but they’re enjoying themselves. Not so the Liverpool players, who still can’t get a touch.
78 min: Liverpool will do well to get to full time without conceding more goals. City are all over them. Strange thing, confidence: Liverpool were giving City a good game in the first half. But now look. Their season in microcosm.
76 min: Liverpool look absolutely shattered. Meanwhile in the stands, the City faithful engage in the Poznan.
GOAL! Manchester City 4-1 Liverpool (Grealish 74)
Grealish has been magnificent this afternoon, and here he gets his reward. Gundogan finds him on the left touchline with a raking diagonal. He slips De Bruyne into space down the channel. De Bruyne cuts back for Grealish, who leans back and guides a first-time shot across Alisson and into the bottom right!
72 min: City continue to toy with Liverpool. Grealish sashays in from the left but can’t quite make enough space to shoot. Mahrez crosses from the right, forcing Alisson to punch clear.
70 min: Liverpool make a quadruple substitution. Salah, Jota, Elliott and Robertson make way for Firmino, Nunez, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Tsimikas.
68 min: The corner comes to nothing. Not that Liverpool can reclaim possession. City still have the ball, and they’re in no mood to turn it over.
67 min: Liverpool look a beaten docket. They can’t get hold of the ball at all. City utterly dominant. After a 874-pass move, Mahrez cuts in from the right and wins a corner off Van Dijk.
65 min: City stroke it around in the imperial style. Meanwhile Niall O’Keeffe has lost patience with the man he perceives to be Liverpool’s weakest link: “What is Van Dijk doing. Standing three yards off opponents when he’s in his own box. Arms behind him. Seems to be his modus operandi this season. Surely he has to leave?”
63 min: Mahrez reaches the byline to the right of goal and crosses into Alisson’s arms. City have enjoyed 84 percent of possession in the last five minutes.
62 min: Alvarez bears down on Alisson and nearly wins the ball. Alisson wriggles out of trouble with a slick Cruyff turn.
60 min: Robertson crosses from the left. The ball trickles behind Salah. Ake miscontrols and Gakpo attempts to get to the loose ball. Gakpo goes over and wants a penalty, but Gakpo was looking for it. He’s fortunate not to be booked for a dive. City counter, Grealish curling towards the top right. Alisson tips around for a corner, from which nothing comes. There are more goals in this game.
58 min: City stroke it around the middle of the park in the patient fashion, because that’s what they’ve earned the right to do now. “The way Liverpool are defending, inviting passes into their own final third, passive defending and slow reaction from midfielders, it is as if they’re coached by Antonio Conte,” quips Yash Gupta.
56 min: Nothing comes of the resulting corner. The campeones song rings around the Etihad.
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55 min: Liverpool haven’t given this up yet, though. Gakpo dribbles in from the left and aims a curler towards the far corner. His shot clips off Dias and wide right of goal. Just. Had that been on target, Ederson was rooted and never getting there.
GOAL! Manchester City 3-1 Liverpool (Gundogan 53)
This is a lovely team goal. Patient triangles. Left to right. Then suddenly Alvarez one-twos with Mahrez out on the right. Alvarez dribbles around the penalty spot and struggles to get a shot away. When he does, it’s blocked, but the ball pings to Gundogan, who takes a calm touch before rifling a shot into the top left. Daylight!
52 min: Grealish wedges in cutely from the left for Gundogan, whose whipped cross from the byline is smothered by Alisson. Next goal huge here … and this game doesn’t feel like a match that’s going to end 2-1. It’s very open.
50 min: Alexander-Arnold flicks a ball down the middle and springs Gakpo clear. Gakpo spins and shoots, only to be denied first by a brilliant Ederson save, then the offside flag. A good response to City’s second from Liverpool here.
49 min: A free kick for Liverpool out on the right. Alexander-Arnold swings it in long. Van Dijk wins a header but neither Jota nor Gakpo are able to meet the dropping ball.
48 min: That was an appalling goal from a Liverpool point of view; an excellent counter from City’s. How huge does that Grealish interception from Salah look now?!
GOAL! Manchester City 2-1 Liverpool (De Bruyne 46)
Mahrez is sent scampering down the right by Alvarez. He’s in acres! Robertson can’t get across. Alisson opts not to come and clear. Mahrez crosses, De Bruyne slots, and that was so simple for City! On the touchline, Klopp is furious with his own players. Everyone in red was asleep!
46 min: Robertson dribbles hard down the left but it’s all for nought as his cross pings off Stones, back off his own leg, and out for a goal kick.
Liverpool get the second half underway. No changes.
A delay to the restart as referee Simon Hooper requires a new pea in his whistle, or something similarly technical. He’s been getting a lot of love from both sets of fans on the old social media, I see.
Here’s some amusing/outrageous footage of Pep Guardiola celebrating City’s equaliser. Kostas Tsimikas is unfortunate enough to be wandering by the technical area at the time, and Pep seems to ask him if he wants to give him five. It’s all about timing your run at this level.
“I don’t know how Tsimikas hasn’t pushed him out of the way there!” 👀
Pep Guardiola didn’t hold back in his celebrations in front of the Liverpool players… 😂
🎙️ @rioferdy5 pic.twitter.com/d5v9oS6eiu
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 1, 2023
Half-time entertainment. Also this week in Granadaland …
HALF TIME: Manchester City 1-1 Liverpool
Well that fair flew by. More please, Manchester City! More please, Liverpool!
45 min +1: Mahrez hits the corner long. Rodri, on the left-hand edge of the six-yard box, volleys goalwards but the ball pings off Akanji and harmlessly out for a goal kick.
45 min: De Bruyne’s persistence wins a corner off Robertson down the right. He leaves it to Mahrez to take. There will be two added minutes.
44 min: Mahrez dribbles down the right and cuts back for Gundogan, whose first-time goalwards slam is blocked brilliantly by Fabinho. City are pressing to take the lead before the break and change the dynamic of the half-time team-talks.
42 min: Elliott has an opportunity to slip Alexander-Arnold clear down the left, but opts to pass to Salah on the right instead. Everyone in the stadium, including Salah, knows he’s miles offside, but a farce is allowed to play out for a few seconds before the flag eventually goes up.
40 min: Mahrez swings the free kick in. Robertson prods it out for a corner. Before it can be taken, Akanji and Henderson collide and exchange viewpoints. The referee is forced to deliver another of his lectures. The corner comes to nothing.
39 min: Alexander-Arnold tussles with Grealish and fouls the latter. Grealish falls over. Alexander-Arnold, in the process of berating the linesman, accidentally kicks Grealish in the ear. VAR takes a look but it was clearly accidental. Not so the challenge Alexander-Arnold makes on the same player when City launch their next attack. Free kick out on the left and a chance for City to load the Liverpool box.
37 min: Alisson is forced to blooter long. Jota flicks a header towards Salah down the right. Salah races into space again … but once again doesn’t have the confidence to take a shot on himself, and the move breaks down.
35 min: Now Rodri clatters into Gakpo from behind. Liverpool want a second yellow. City don’t. A melee around the referee. No second booking, despite Henderson’s long protestations, though you suspect Rodri needs to watch his step now.
33 min: Jota spins away from Rodri, who tugs at his shirt cynically. A booking for the Spanish international, who spoke so eloquently after the Scotland game this week of his love of free-flowing football.
32 min: This game is being played at 101 miles per hour, with no real drop in quality as a result. It’s a fun watch. Perhaps more so right now for City fans: their team were very close to going two down there, but Grealish almost single-handedly turned the tide. A big couple of minutes from him, right there.
