Premier League week 4: Manchester City 5-0 Liverpool
Just two weeks after routing Arsenal 4-0, Liverpool suffered a severe blow in Manchester this afternoon. Down to 10-men at the 35th minute, the Reds sank in the second half for an easy from the Citizens. Belgium international De Bruyne was fantastic in this game.
Manchester City confirms in the early season, along side United rivals, that they will be fighting for the title this year. Their offense is on point and defense is solid after signing two superstar defenders in the names of Mendy from AS Monaco and Walker from the Spurs. The team has depth and Zimpler casino list considers they are legitimate contenders for a deep Champions League run as well. With two solid starting XI, Man City can look ahead this year.
Coach Pep Guardiola reacts after the win:
“Having two teams at that level at 10 v 11 for 50 minutes is a good advantage. It had been even at 11 v 11. Sometimes it is not easy to play against ten men but we did it well. The second goal helped us a lot.
We spoke at half-time and said: don’t let them run. We cannot play a game up and down. We have to find the right moment. We had wasted some minutes pressing. They attacked a lot in the channels. They are so fast and they have quality. They created problems. Hopefully, when we play at Anfield, we can solve that.
It is important to touch the ball as much as possible. To control the counter-attacks, I thought we could defend better with three at the back than four. We changed at half-time – sometimes you can use both systems. The full-backs gave us a lot of energy. Benjamin Mendy, Kyle Walker, Danilo… they have a lot of legs! They can run and put in a lot of crosses. That helped us to hurt the opposition. It is a big step for us. We had patience and read the situation well.
For a long time, City were unable to beat Liverpool but we did it today. It gives us confidence before our Champions League game.”
On De Bryune:
“He has quality and commitment, he is intelligent and he understands things quickly. He makes a huge amount of passes, he is quick and he always sees spaces where others do not.
He is good with the ball at his feet and he finds space. He is a complete player and we are a lucky Club to have him with us. I am so happy with his performance – and not just for today.”
Liverpool coach Klopp judges his squad’s performance:
“Both teams were not really compact, that’s true. I was also not happy about this, but we cannot have these situations if City would’ve defended perfectly so you can defend not perfectly and still win 5-0.
Yes, we were not compact enough, all three up front were not really involved, we didn’t jump in the midfield [and] go on Fernandinho. It was one, two passes, and Fernandinho could turn, that was the first problem only because Fernandinho had the ball and could play it to De Bruyne and Silva, but they didn’t create many things from this.”
Now Champions League is coming for both teams next week as Liverpool will host a talented Spanish side of Sevilla while Man City will travel to Holland to face Feyernoord. Both teams are expected to win as the most coveted club’s Cup resumes.
