LIVE STREAM Liverpool vs Manchester City
Liverpool and Manchester City go head to head on Sunday in a game that may lack its recent importance – with 13 points separating the sides.
The Reds are in 11th with only two wins from eight games and boss Jurgen Klopp has already said they are “not in the title race”.
Defending champions City – on the other hand – are unbeaten after nine games.
This game could prove to be a turning point, though, if the Reds can rip up the form book at Anfield.
Klopp’s side come into the game on the back of a remarkable 7-1 win at Rangers in the Champions League.
The reigning champions meet the faltering challengers in a blockbuster Anfield encounter on Sunday afternoon, as Liverpool host Manchester City in the Premier League.
A 13-point chasm already separates the two powerhouses in the table, with the Reds going down 3-2 to Arsenal last weekend while City bested Southampton 4-0.
For the past five years, the Premier League title race has almost always come down to a two-horse battle between Liverpool and Man City, but Reds boss Jurgen Klopp has already admitted that Sunday’s clash will not decide the destiny of the title for his side this time around.
As Arsenal and Man City continue to ride off into the sunset, Liverpool were left to rue a batch of controversial officiating decisions in last week’s 3-2 defeat to the Gunners, but the wounded Reds were a different kettle of fish for Rangers to handle in the Champions League.
Tottenham Hotspur attacker Son Heung-min scored a 13-minute hat-trick against Leicester City off the bench earlier this season, but anything that the South Korean can do, Mohamed Salah can do better, as he scored the fastest treble in Champions League history as a substitute in a 7-1 demolition of the Scottish giants.
Salah’s strikes came in the 75th, 80th and 81st minute of a contest in which Scott Arfield had initially put Rangers one goal to the good, but Liverpool’s Egyptian wing king, Darwin Nunez, Harvey Elliott and Roberto Firmino (2) completed a stunning turnaround for those in red.
Now aiming to improve on their measly 10th-placed standing in the Premier League table, Liverpool welcome Man City to Anfield with their unbeaten home record for 2022-23 still intact, and Klopp’s side have now gone 27 top-flight games without suffering defeat at their Merseyside headquarters.
While eight goals flew in at Ibrox in midweek, not a single one was chalked up in Man City’s trip to Copenhagen, where an Erling Braut Haaland-less Citizens side settled for a goalless draw against a side whom they had demolished 5-0 just six days prior.
A scorcher of a strike from Rodri was disallowed for a handball by Riyad Mahrez, who saw a penalty saved by the impenetrable wall that was Kamil Grabara, and City only had 11 men on the field for half-an-hour before Sergio Gomez was given his marching orders.
Nevertheless, that point proved to be enough for Pep Guardiola‘s side to book their spot in the last-16 as they embark on another quest for elusive European glory, and they are still being kept away from top spot in the Premier League by Arsenal, whose one-point lead remains intact.
By putting four past Southampton in their most recent top-flight contest, City travel to Anfield on a three-game Premier League winning run – scoring a whopping 13 goals in those 270 minutes of football – but they have already dropped points to Aston Villa and Newcastle United away from home this term.
The champions can still proudly boast to possess a 22-game unbeaten away run in the Premier League, one of which saw City and Liverpool draw 2-2 at Anfield last term before playing out an identical stalemate at the Etihad, but Klopp won the battle of wits with Guardiola in July’s Community Shield.
