Liverpool vs. Manchester City: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

Picture this. Ederson dips his head to a high boot – about the height on the photo above – and Sadio Mané is shown a red card. Dangerous play. High boot. Mané didn’t even know Ederson was there.

But Pep Guardiola said the usual Anfield nonsense before the game and … influenced the officials. There are various ways to corrupt, aren’t there?

Liverpool not only get fewer penalties than other teams, they get even fewer meaningful penalties. Today they Reds had to win two absolute stonewallers just to get given one. (The data I’ve studied told me that the second wouldn’t be given.)

But well done the Reds, for outplaying and out-passing a full-strength Man City side.

Oh my, what a stunning display by Alisson; in your big games you need your big players, for those big moments. The world’s best keeper.

And those passes and that assist by Trent Alexander-Arnold, tearing it up against the team he denied two points at the Etihad, and then riled by saying it means more to Liverpool fans (which is does, if things are judged relative to spending and sportswashing, and having to be done the harder way).

Ibou Konaté, bossing it alongside Virgil van Dijk at the back, as the best pairing in the league. Erling Haaland couldn’t get past him.

And how good was the Reds’ best finisher this season, Diogo Jota? Looking so sharp again today, such an incredibly clever player. Fourteen non-penalty goals from just 1,500 minutes, showing how close he is to Haaland on a per-90 basis, with slightly fewer goals but far more invention and work-rate (and no tally-boosting penalties or features like a medieval ogre).

What a bonus to see Mo Salah starting this game, after barely playing a minute in 2024, thanks to Egypt breaking him. Back and 100% fit and no rustiness, clearly.

It was also great to see Ryan Gravenberch, growing in influence in recent months, show why he’s potentially the best 21-year-old midfielder in the world, with another display pushing him towards the region of ’settled in English football’, but with a little further to go.

And how good was it to call on the midfield maestro, Thiago Alcântara, the heartbeat of Pep Guardiola’s Bayern side, and also the 2021/22 Liverpool team, which remains Jürgen Klopp’s best (in terms of almost all metrics, bar trophies; that’s what falling just short of a Quadruple gets you).

And his teenage apprentice, the outstanding Stefan Bajcetic? Such quality. The way they came on and calmed things down, for the win.

And 18-year-old winger Ben Doak with his impact from the bench, with that pace, directness and ability to commit defenders, as he matures into the real deal.

Of course, the centre-back who has partnered van Dijk the most, Joël Matip, with eight years at the club, was able to come on as a third centre-back and help shore up the defence towards the end, as he’s done on and off for nearly a decade now.

The star, however, was perhaps the local lad and press-master, possession-hugger and dribble-dancer, Curtis Jones. Nothing fazes him. He was great again today.

Of course, in reality, these were all, in truth, injured.

“Three or four players out” said Neville, proving again he can’t even count halfway to 11.

But at least he knows two penalties when he sees them. Even Mike “the ref got it right” Dean thought it was a penalty. For Liverpool. (He never gave the Reds one as a ref, because, well, he’s a Scouser to anyone outside of Liverpool.)

Even young Jayden Danns, with two goals and various chances created in 67 minutes of football in the past fortnight or so, was out with concussion.

And Dominik Szoboszlai, like Salah, coming back from fairly serious hamstring issues, and lacking game-time. Liverpool had neither full Szoboszlai nor Salah today.

Still, at least Caoimhín Kelleher, Conor Bradley, Wataru Endo, Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, et al, are used to this fixture.

Oh, shit.

I guess the experience rests with 20-year-old Harvey Elliott. By the way, how good was young Elliott?! I don’t think City had a player under 23 in their starting XI, nor many with a so few Premier League games as half the Liverpool lineup.

But hey, at least Liverpool didn’t only play three days ago. Oh, bollocks.

Thankfully the PGMOL were on top-form, with the memo “no late penalties to Liverpool, it’s a rule” strong today.

As Liverpool tore City apart after the break, the Reds needed fair decisions. They did not get them (and that’s before the way Mac Allister was pushed from the path of the ball for City’s goal).

If Liverpool lose the league, it will also likely be because of injuries, almost all of which were unavoidable. (Konaté being risked beyond half-time on Thursday seems the only partially self-inflicted one.)

Occasionally Man City have an injury crisis, but that usually means three players absent. At the moment it’s just one: nightclub man, Jack Grealish; £100m to be a spare-part.

Yet City now have to host Arsenal next, while the Reds host a very inconsistent Brighton (themselves beset with injuries), so the league table could look very different the weekend after the international break.

Guardiola already basically made it impossible for Michael Oliver to give the Reds anything today, albeit Stuart Attwell is just a spineless mass of jelly in a PGMOL uniform.

This is becoming a trend, after Mauricio Pochettino before the League Cup final did the same.

It’s part of the reason Liverpool have got so few penalties relative to almost all other clubs in the Klopp era – the narrative.

I'd like to see managers immediately suspended for the game if they say anything at all about the referee before a match.

They can assess a referee's performance after the game, and discuss issues they may have with that particular official, but we're now seeing managers do the old Ferguson thing of making life impossible for the ref before the game.

Managers can refuse to answer any questions, stating they are not allowed to. Any comment, however oblique, puts pressure on the ref.

Oliver is (or at least was, until a year or two ago) basically the only referee who gives Liverpool decisions at an expected rate, while in the Klopp/Guardiola era, Man City had won 41% more penalties than the Reds, despite attacking metrics that are usually no more than 5-10% better.

Since Guardiola arrived, it’s been 46 to Liverpool (now 47), and a whopping 65 to Man City. Yet City are the ones who make out they’ve been hard done by.

Even Leicester, who haven’t been in the top flight that entire time, had as many penalties as Liverpool (46) going into this game since the start of Klopp’s first full season, while in the same time (2016-2024), Crystal Palace have won almost 10% more Premier League penalties than the Reds, with their 50.

Crystal Fucking Palace!

Chelsea have 59 to the Reds’ 46 (47 now), and Man United have 57. I’ll be sharing a data-based article, perhaps tomorrow, on how Liverpool are especially harshly treated at key moments in matches. As ever, when you research these things, you soon realise why, as the very thing happens days later.

It’s perhaps a shame Liverpool don’t employ a puffed-up middle-aged man to shout this stuff to the PMGOL, albeit this puffed-up middle-aged man does his best to make these things known via this site. But I don’t have the ear of Howard Webb, nor the headline-grabbing name and self-aggrandising tattoos.

One of the reasons I focus so much on things like how few penalties Liverpool get (in the Klopp era) is because of managers, pundits and fans of other clubs believing the opposite to be true. Narratives blow truth out of the water, every time.

Another reason Liverpool might fail to win the league includes the debacle and Spurs, and how the Reds, with not a bad tackle in there and sometimes not even a foul for a first and/or second yellow, have had more than twice as many red cards as City and Arsenal put together. And that the VARs Paul Tierney (vs Bournemouth) and Darren England (vs Spurs) had absolute shockers.

Attwell has had one today. He may not be pulled up for it like the others were, but he should be.

We all know the Spurs debacle, but I think Tierney remains the only VAR this season not to overturn a mistake on the pitch that was later overturned by the independent panel.

Anyway, rant over; tomorrow I’ll present a lot of data to make it clear.

For now, back to the match, and how brilliant the Reds’ reserves played.

The rest of my analysis and the analysis of the others follows for subscribers only.