The title procession can begin. Eleven points clearly with 12 games for their nearest rivals, Liverpool will not let this slip now. Based on this authoritative 2-0 victory in the Etihad Stadium, it will be a matter of when not if they reach the non-measurement of 90 points.
Certainly, if Mohamed Salah stops, the title will be won on time for Arsenal to give them an honorary guard in Anfield in May. For the 11th time this season, the suspected Ballon d’Or winner adorned a match with a goal and assisting. The previous High Watermark in a Premier League campaign was 11. It is February.
This was not one of those games where everything flowed through Mohamed Salah. Indeed, in the 10 minutes before he opened the score – a shot of Nathan Ake bend after a cute low Alexis Mac Allister Corner had flown around the corner by Dominik Szoboszlai – Liverpool’s hazard had no completed passes and nothing else brand. He only needs one opening on the form of this season.
Then give him two and Liverpool would have a pillow. More than 20 minutes without a shot for the visitors, but defending a moment of lax for Jeremy Doku gave Trent Alexander-Arnold time to look up and choose a pass. When that happens, the opponent is always on the back foot. Salah slid away from Josko Gvardiol. Both he and Ake were planning to send Salah to the name rule, a precise touch with the right foot and they were out of the game. Szoboszlai was then present to sweep home.
From that moment, not much for both sides. VAR intervened to deny both parties outdoor pin goals, Omar Marmoush for City in the first denied Curtis Jones what the indisputable match winner would have been in the second. Even without that headroom, Liverpool never felt threatened by a team that has changed so many of their dreams into nightmares.
In that sense this was not just the Salah show. The absence of one big star in Erling Haaland was certainly felt. City has built up an attack for two and a half seasons to lead opportunities on the best No. 9 in the world. Without him it really didn’t matter what they got good. Doku ended this competition with 13 successful take-on left, most in a Premier League match this season, and yet without the big man struck in the middle, those arrows resulted in the name rule in just two created opportunities.
Almost two -thirds of the possession was that of the city. Their middle behind Abdukhodir Khusanov had just as many last third touches as Luis Diaz. Look at that kind of statistics and you would convince yourself that this was a well -known meeting between the two in the Etihad, the kind that Pep Guardiola never really loses. This time, however, their attack was toothless. Sixteen Schoten worth 0.63 XG – of which almost a third of one Rico Lewis effort came – is such a bad shooting display as the city has had in years. Only if Marmoush was a garden or more offside, could they make a really good shot.
Liverpool was not much better, but well, they had Salah.
Trumedia
City was perhaps the most important architects of their problems for the goal, but Liverpool was all too willing to help them. Ryan Gravenberch and Mac Allister were calmly personed for the rear four. Nothing came in the middle. Everyone in a red shirt was willing to fall back and make a shift. The most excellent moments of Salah were perhaps his target contributions, but the zeal he showed in the 82nd minute to steal possession in front of his side and ride by bodies to get out.
When such an zeal is shown on the side, the credit is heard on the touchline. It took all too long, Arne Slot will enter a select club of five coaches who won the Premier League in their first season in England. Salah will be clamped and rightly at every price; His manager will certainly feel that he has placed his best players in the best positions to earn the great honor. That in itself is a coaching triumph.
From the start this has had the appearance of an ego-free triumph. Slot has not felt any worries to rip Jurgen Klopp’s XI or to demand his own players. A diploma more caution, a tweak in midfield to add firmness, and this side is back as something around the best side in Europe. For the first time in the 20 years, statistics has been followed, they can win a top game with 34 percent ownership.
Not that this is all simplistic. Finally, his system assessed a Tee, Jones and Szoboszlai were centrally used to block the early structure of City, to fly up and down and attack the box while most of the structure went off the flanks. What an opposition members approached – mostly Nico Gonzalez, occasionally Lewis and Kevin De Bruyne – was overwhelmed.
So often it was the city that the architects were of Liverpool’s pain. Salah and Company have been great, they are just the boys in Sky Blue that Scintilla has been better. How sweet then, that the moment that it all became inevitable came to the Etihad. A champion performance for a champion in waiting.