PPerhaps the most special aspect of Sunday afternoon at Anfield was how normal it all felt. Everyone came for something apocalyptic and what they got was a league match that felt like pretty much any other league match where Liverpool beat a side that isn’t as good as them. For a while there was a feeling that Liverpool would have to pay for not capitalizing on their early dominance, for missing decent chances. But Manchester City are no longer the almost supernatural force they once were; In the end they made two mistakes in quick succession, giving away the first possession and then a penalty, and the game was Liverpool’s.
Even Pep Guardiola seems to have accepted that it is over. After the – downright uncomfortable – sight of him clawing at his own scalp on Tuesday as they threw away a three-goal lead against Feyenoord, he responded to chants of ‘You’ll be fired tomorrow morning’ by grinning and raising six fingers to give it number of Premier League titles he has won. Unfortunately, it also shows how many of the last seven games City have lost.
All this raises two questions. Firstly, can anyone stop Liverpool, who have won 18 games in 20 under Arne Slot? And secondly, under what circumstances could Guardiola actually be sacked?
So far, Slot has a habit of playing with teams when their form dips. It is not meant to detract from what he has achieved at Anfield, but to point out that he has also been a lucky manager. But a big part of the reason Liverpool’s opponents haven’t been at their best is because they’ve been playing against Liverpool, who seem to have found a very happy middle ground in which they have many of the qualities of Jürgen Klopp’s side, without any of the qualities of Jürgen Klopp’s team. the recklessness.
Few managers have left a club as good as Klopp. Most leave when the structure is broken, but Klopp had begun the process of rebuilding, reshaping his forward and midfield over the past few seasons. Slot, it should not be forgotten, has done this without adding a single player; which, with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah nearing the end of their contracts, could have become problematic by next season. Yet he did not leave a side that had been so successful of late that the path inevitably led downwards. After four consecutive City titles, there is no reason for anyone at Liverpool to resist change. Slot has played the political game well, always paying due respect to Klopp while making adjustments to allow Liverpool to play a slightly more conservative style.
At the same time, there have been repeated occasions this season where he has made changes that have had a clearly positive effect. Almost the standard pattern for a match against Liverpool is a somewhat boring first half, followed by a second in which they score a few goals. Against Ipswich, Wolves, Chelsea, Arsenal, Brighton, Bayer Leverkusen, Southampton and Real Madrid, Liverpool improved after Slot’s in-game tinkering. That’s a hugely impressive success rate, and indicates that a manager is not only extremely adept at reading the game tactically, but also decisively in responding to it.
Liverpool’s lead over Chelsea and Arsenal is nine points with 25 games to go. It would be too early to say the race is over, even if we knew how they deal with life when fate turns against them, but that is an extremely healthy advantage, especially since there is no reason to expect that Chelsea or Arsenal will suddenly get started. a brutal winning streak – although Arsenal have already played their away games against five of the other six teams who finished in the top seven last season.
And could Guardiola be fired? It seems unthinkable. For most of the last sixteen years, he was clearly the best coach in the world. Long before he joined City, the club was built according to his vision. Breaking away from that would be a seismic act for the club’s owners, far bigger than, say, Leicester sacking Claudio Ranieri or Chelsea sacking José Mourinho in the months after they won the title, especially as City battles the charge in the Premier League.
But history also shows that once the magic in football is gone, it is very difficult to get it back (look at Inter in 1966-67, dominant and seemingly on their way to just the Treble, abruptly losing form, winning only twice) their last eleven games of the season ended in nothing; Helenio Herrera was given another season, in which they finished fifth).
Within a month, City’s aura has disappeared, but who realistically seems a better candidate than Guardiola to restore it? As long as he feels sufficiently energetic, he will certainly be given that opportunity. But what means he has to do so will likely depend, like so many other things, on the outcome of the Premier League charges against the club.
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This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian US’s weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Do you have a question for Jonathan? Email footballwithjw@theguardian.com and he will provide the best answer in a future edition