Premier League week 23
The champions suffered a heavy defeat at home against the probable next Premier League champions, Man City which could be decisive in the title race. Liverpool allowed four goals in the 4-1 rout suffered at Anfield stadium. The defeat creates a 10-point gap between the two teams (50 points for Man City, 40 point for Liverpool) with the Cityzens having to play one additional game.
It was also the first win at Anfield for City since 2003 and the second home loss of the season for Liverpool.
Out of title race
Mathematically Liverpool still has a chance but the team has had a few dreadful results in 2021. They lost 3 out of the last 5 games in the league while Man City is cruising with a ninth consecutive victory. After a slow start Guardiola’s men seem unstoppable. They hold a 5-point lead and their opponents seem to struggle a bit like Man Utd yesterday 3-3 against Everton.
The Spaniard manager comments following the big win at Anfield:
“What was important was the three points. Of course, I’m so proud of the guys who have broken a record that has stood for a long time, that shows how difficult it is and hopefully next time we can do a similar performance with people here.
Anfield without people is completely different because I could imagine being at 1-1 and how different the influence would be on their players. The commitment from the guys in the stands who did not play supporting their team-mates. Three points and I’m grateful for this victory.”
Liverpool coach Klopp on the loss:
“That is a fair assessment. Look, big parts of the game were really, really good. I think tonight there played two teams against each other: one with a crazy good run, won now their 14th game in a row, and another team with obviously different results – better and lesser good results. And then nobody saw that in the first half, you only saw two really good football teams who tried to cause each other problems. I think we were, for a lot of people probably, surprisingly dominant in the first half, [we] played really good stuff.”
On the bad stretch:
“Criticism is always like this. Somebody can tell me whatever went wrong, stuff like this, I know the things probably before already so that’s not a problem. We take that. But it is not the last game of the season so there are a lot of games to come. If we would have played more often as we played tonight, we would not be 10 or 13 points behind City but it is not a dreamland or whatever, we have to accept the reality and we do that. We will fight, we will fight for results”.
