City coach Guardiola got sent off
There was too much Liverpool FC for Manchester City. The Reds stopped the Citizens’ comeback thanks to Mo Salah and came from behind to book their ticket to the Champions League semifinals.
Defeated 3-0 in Liverpool, the bookmakers such as Grosvenor were not giving much chance to the Citizens. Nonetheless, Manchester City had the perfect start scoring within the first two minutes and could (should) have been awarded a second goal before half-time.
The second half started without Guardiola on the bench.The City coach got sent-off at the break for having some words on the denied second gal. In the second-half, Liverpool had composure to overcome the deficit and sealed their path into the last 4. Manchester City fail again in their Champions League quest while Liverpool have the chance to renew with their glorious past.
Liverpool Coach Klopp on advancing to the semis:
I really think [City] are the best team in the world at the moment. But I knew we could beat them. But that doesn’t make us the better team, it’s football. It’s the cool thing in the game, that it’s still possible. It only makes it difficult and it will be difficult in the semis as well, 100 per cent.
But we are now in the semis and first of all we should enjoy the moment because it’s obviously a while ago that Liverpool were in the semis. It was a while ago that I was in the semis. Now we are there together – so that’s quite a cool moment and I’m really happy about it.
You saw the line-up of Man City – they took all the risk and it could have worked. 100 per cent it could have worked. But it was clear as well that if they cannot score enough then there is always a chance for us.
I would have been nervous if we were 3-0 down at half-time but even then I would have known we’d have the chance to score one or two. I knew we’d have to change a little bit from the first half.
We had to be more compact, win more second balls – to be more compact and then because of that winning more second balls – and then playing more and better football in the moments where we got the ball.
That was much better in the second half and we were then really difficult, with a constant threat in your mind [for City] that you know each ball you lose is really difficult to defend again. That helps. The boys deserve the semi-final.
Man City coach Guardiola and his team must look forward now:
“We started really well at Anfield but we conceded two fast goals and today in the first half we did everything right, we took a lot of risks with three at the back and lots of players in front.
We created chances, but of course it’s not easy because they had ten players behind. We controlled perfectly their counter attack apart from conceding the last action from [Alex] Oxlade-Chamberlain.
To recover three goals is not easy. We scored one but weren’t able to score more. We were beaten by an exceptional team. Last season it was the round of 16, this season it’s the quarter finals, hopefully next season we can go to the semi-finals.”
