Liverpool 2-0 Man City (Gakpo 12′, Salah pen 78′)
ANFIELD — A third of the season gone, 11 points ahead of Manchester City, Liverpool go marching on.
“You’re getting sacked in the morning,” 60,000 Scousers sang, revelling in what might have been a rout had the score reflected Liverpool’s astonishing supremacy.
That’s another first for Pep Guardiola to embroider a run that stretches to six defeats in seven winless matches. And he thought the 4-0 loss at home to Tottenham Hotspur was the nadir. This was far more painful since to some degree it was the delivery of a result foretold.
City were not even second best when the game kicked off and ended it in fifth, just a point above Nottingham Forest.
From all angles it seems Guardiola’s fading empire is being assailed. City were dispatched by the same scoreline as Real Madrid. Kylian Mbappe one day, Erling Haaland the next. It’s all the same to Liverpool in this unquenchable mood.
A full 25 minutes elapsed before we saw a semblance of a passing sequence from City in Liverpool’s half, and 39 when Rico Lewis mustered their first shot. Before that it was all fretful anguish, thrashing about to stay their suffering.
That first period showed how Liverpool felt about themselves, never mind what they thought of City. They were full of it, cocksure, dynamic, toying with their ragged foe. Even before Cody Gakpo put them ahead, Virgil van Dijk smacked a post and sent another header narrowly wide.
Shots were blocked. City were shell-shocked, unable to fathom a coherent response. Matheus Nunes and Phil Foden found their way into the book in the struggle to contain the rubicund swarm. And the noise was threatening, each rising decibel falling on City ears like a clubbing right hand.
Though the half ended 1-0 the contest felt like annihilation, as if a terrible stored energy had been released upon an old oppressor. It started in the opening minutes with Ilkay Gundogan ransacked in the middle of the park. By the time the dazed 33-year-old resumed his feet, Liverpool were away, flying towards goal.
City looked panicked, the players isolated in possession, hurried in defence, clocking up uncharacteristic errors. You wondered what Guardiola might say at half-time to rouse them. Are they listening anymore?
The losing sample is growing, City’s eminence and spirit eroding rapidly. They held nil fear for Liverpool, or the Kop. When Mo Salah stormed clear 10 minutes into the second half City waited helplessly for the execution. The great man had too much time, electing to shoot rather than square to Gakpo.
By such turns does fate sometimes hinge. Relieved, Guardiola reloaded with Jeremy Doku and Savinho on the wings, seeking individual solutions to organisational problems.
What else could he do? Containment had got City nowhere, Nunes and Gundogan wholly ineffective in the middle of the park. This at least stretched the pitch and gave City a shape that allowed them to advance in a more familiar way.
Realising the need to respond to City’s renewed agency, Slot replaced Trent Alexander-Arnold with the steely Jarell Quansah and introduced the pace of Darwin Nunez for Gakpo. Inspired.
Nunez ambushed Ruben Dias, Luis Diaz was on to the loose ball, inviting the fatal foul by Stefan Ortega, who rushed from goal to gift Liverpool the decisive penalty and invite Salah to make amends.
He didn’t need asking twice. The City players did what they could to disturb the king of Egypt.
Haaland filled Ortega’s ears with advice. Salah did keepie-uppies by the penalty spot in an act of timeless cool. No greater eff-you could there have been in this context.
Is that all you have got? Bang. Two zip.

Anfield erupted. The Salah song rang about the precinct. Put a number on that was the message to the crunchers evaluating the worth of a Liverpool all-time great at the age of 32. On this day at least he looked immune to the ageing process, unlike those thirty-somethings in blue.
Gundogan is so yesterday he was put beyond use by the savagery of the Liverpool onslaught. Kevin De Bruyne’s brief exposure revealed little of his former eminence. When he was gifted a chance courtesy of a rare Van Dijk error, Caoimhin Kelleher promptly snuffed out the danger.
At the close Guardiola walked to the Anfield Road end to raise six digits at those Liverpool fans raining ridicule from the stands. Six titles was the thrust of it, but what weight did the message carry on an afternoon as coruscating as this when the power deficit to Liverpool was so obvious?
Guardiola is a man stripped bare, his aching soul on display like never before. Defiance looked more like impotence, an empty scream at the new reality consuming him.
He won’t be getting sacked, of course. It just felt like that. However he processes this, it is new territory for him, and there is no knowing how it will end.