On a day of cool and suction cup in the north, the type of day when the branches of the trees on the new way of Ashton swayed and groaned and the fans walked to the floor with their head folded in the wind, Pep Guardiola walked And he worried about his along the band line in the Etihad and saw the Liverpool claim the crown that Manchester City has used during the last four Seasons
Without anyone realizing that Liverpool has resisted a storm the last weeks, dropping points in drosts and monotonians, losing in Plymouth in the FA Cup, losing an advantage in the last minute in the cauldron of the last Derby of Goodison Park and Drawing with Aston Villa. We saw them bend in that storm but they did not break.
And then they came here, to the house of the champions, the house of the team that has dominated English football more completely than any other team, the team that has denied Liverpool so much and so often in the recent season.
And the Arne Slot side dismissed the city 2-0 through the goals of the first half of Mo Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai with an ease that was derogatory in the quiet and authorized form of its execution, and moved 11 points of distance from the arsenal in second place at the top of the upper part of the Premier League part. And everyone knew it was over.
Because that will be enough. This inhospitable Sunday towards the end of February, when the drizzle fell on the head of Arne Slot and baptized him in his remarkable victory in his first season as a successor of Jurgen Klopp, it was the day he will remember as the day Liverpool won the league . .
Of course, 11 -point deficits have been reviewed before. Newcastle exploded a 12-point advantage in 1995-96 and Manchester United exploded a 11-point advantage in 1997-98, but the teams that reviewed them, the United of Sir Alex Ferguson and the Arsenal of Ursene Wenger, were very different sides to those of Liverpool's. abandoned persecutors this season.
Liverpool moved 11 points at the top of the Premier League with a dominant victory over Manchester City
Mohamed Salah once delivered against visitors with a goal and an assistance
He scored the first before configuring Dominik Szoboszlai to get the second goal in the first half
Mikel Arteta's arsenal lost 1-0 at home against West Ham on Saturday. Without teeth in the attack, betrayed by the lack of recruitment, even with a game in the hand, they seem completely unable to assemble the type of implacable winning career that would exert pressure on the slot liverpool.
Nottingham Forest, the third team, has had a good season, but awarded four goals in 12 minutes to Newcastle a couple of hours before Liverpool went out to Etihad. They are 17 points behind Liverpool anyway. They will not approach Salah, Virgil Van Dijk and Company.
Enough about the opposition anyway. Liverpool has been simply too good this season. Slot has challenged the wisdom received that you should never be the man who follows man. He has taken the team that Klopp bequeathed and improved.
Perhaps he has taken part of the emotion of his game, but he has made them a winning machine, a machine that motivated the city in decline in the mud and was too successful and consistent for arsenal, which will be briefly bridesmaid.
Liverpool has gone through a series of games that were its most difficult test and the next sequence offers some under exchange fruits that include Southampton and Leicester City. Some can protest this coronation is premature, but the reality is that they are at home and dry.
Without being spectacular, there was something majestic in the victory of Liverpool here. Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate were imperious on the back, the best central couple in the country. They repelled everything the city threw them. “This is how you see a winning performance of the title,” Gary Neville said in Sky Sports.
In the future, the combination of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Salah on the right of Liverpool was unstoppable. Some of Alexander-Arnold's passes were a delight. Salah was a pure blood, dancing for the wing, a player for whose talent the defense of the city had no answer. It is possible that the crown does not really sit in their heads yet, but everyone knows that City passed the mantle to their successors here on tonight and bleak.
Arne Slot has led the Liverpool Jurgen Klopp team gave him and managed to improve it
It has made them a winning machine that molds the city in decline in the mud
Virgil van Dijk (in the photo) and Ibrahima Konate are the best central couple in the country
City repeated a trick that has come to perfect this team. They dominated the stripes of the game while they managed to seem helpless. They were without the injured Erling Haaland and John Stones, of course, but it was more than that. The city is yesterday's heroes. The battle for them is to try to reach the first five.
His greatest delight in Sunday's gloom was when Curtis Jones had a goal in the second half discarded offside. That would have made the score 3-0. The game was over then, but that is a measure of to what extent the city has fallen. His followers are feeding on remains now.
City had had the brightest beginning. In the way Jeremy Doku joked with Alexander-Arnold for the right flank of Liverpool and Kevin de Bruyne floated a beautiful pass to Savinho on the left, there were echoes of a glorious past.
But City could not do that anything from that early promise comes out and when Liverpool won a corner in the 14th minute, they executed a wonderful piece that did not require fighting, pushing or pushing or grabbing.
Alexis Mac Allister perforated the corner under the near post, Szoboszlai ran to meet her and turned her around the corner to the penalty spot where Salah was waiting to meet him. Salah's first shot diverted Nathan Ake, beyond the reach of Ederson.
City tried to recover from its setback and resumed its domination of the game. During a 15 -minute spell, they had 78 percent possession and thought they had matched when Omar Marmous swept a good ending beyond Alisson. He was discarded offside.
Liverpool's defense was resolved and City could not find a step and eight minutes before part time, visitors scored again. Alexander-Arnold floated a sumptuous pass to Salah and Salah turned Josko Gvardiol inside before cutting the ball back to Szoboszlai. The Hungary striker had a lot of time to pierce a left shot beyond Ederson.
City rarely threatened to force his way back to the game. Marmoush dragged a decent opportunity at the beginning of the second half, but Van Dijk and Konate were more than equal to what the small city could gather.
The city, meanwhile, are yesterday's heroes and the battle is to be the first five
City rarely threatened to force the way back to the game and is a team in decline
Liverpool fans sang that 'we are going to win the league', we will remember this day like the one they did
If there was a primary image of this game, it was Van Dijk that rose above all others in its own penalty area and a corner or a cross was directed. It happened again and again. It symbolized the indomitability of Liverpool.
“We are going to win the League,” Liverpool fans sang long after the rest of the land had emptied, “and now you have to believe us, and now you have to believe us.” After this victory, everyone believes them.
When they do it mathematically, it will mean that they will have secured their 20th top -level English title, placing them in Manchester United. There were no fans to see the Klopp team win the title in 2019-20 in the middle of the Covid crisis.
When the time comes for this season, when Liverpool takes advantage of his opportunity to tear down United of his hanger and the crowds are aligned on the Anfield path to welcome the Kop, he will feel very, very different.