London: An unstoppable Liverpool romped to a 3-1 victory over visiting Manchester City at the Anfield Stadium, dealing their rivals their worst defeat of the season so far in the 12th week of Premier League action.
And now Jurgen Klopp’s squad may well be unstoppable in its quest for a title, given that the win puts them eight points ahead of Leicester City and Chelsea and a whopping nine points out in front of Man City, coached by Spain’s Pep Guardiola.
It was an exciting contest Sunday with high-quality play on both sides, along with a significant amount of controversy – questions, for instance, about the VAR.
The visitors clearly felt that they were getting the short end of the stick on assorted decisions and incidents, and things started off on a bad foot when a very early penalty claim against Trent Alexander-Arnold was ignored, after which Liverpool cascaded down the field moments later for the first tally of the night by Fabinho just five minutes into play.
Man City was missing its injured goaltender Ederson as well as David Silva at midfield, and – even though Guardiola’s squad played well, Liverpool was energised and going for the throat, far and away living up to its own hopes to give the visitors a thrashing.
Replacing Ederson in the net was Chilean Claudio Bravo.
Liverpool has not lost a match in their last 17 outings at home in Premier League competition against City, but Guardiola just can’t seem to find the combination against Klopp, losing eight matches in all competitions against him, three more than he has against any other manager.
The score sheet was all Liverpool, reflecting the tallies by Fabinho, Salah and Mane, through the 51st minute, and it was only when things were virtually out of reach in the 78th minute that B. Silva managed to find the net for Man City.
IANS