Liverpool improved its impressive Premier League table lead to nine points with a 2-0 win over defending champions Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday.
The loss extends the career-high winless run of City boss Pep Guardiola to seven games and, more pertinently, his fifth-place team’s gap behind Liverpool to 11 points.
Arne Slot has improved already-strong Liverpool significantly and his Reds are absolutely, indubitably the favorites to win the Premier League in his first season in charge, while Pep Guardiola can no longer imagine his Manchester City side’s slump is a fluke. Both of this things, if not certain before the match, were etched into cement following these 90 minutes at Anfield. Liverpool ran City wild in the first half, and Virgil van Dijk’s Man of the Match performance — aside from a silly late giveaway — headlined a Reds side that controlled the game despite the late-arriving absence of Ibrahima Konate. That winning mentality did not leave Liverpool along with Jurgen Klopp, and so they’ve adopted the new ways of Slot in victorious fashion. Guardiola’s City, on the other hand, may not be able to rescue their season because January is so far off, and Pep Guardiola’s lack of answers for Rodri’s season-ending injury and Mateo Kovacic’s shorter-term absence have to sting the legendary boss. Ilkay Gundogan could only do so much, Rico Lewis was pretty one-dimensional, and Kevin De Bruyne didn’t have the fitness to enter the game prior to it being, essentially, lost. Guardiola has earned the reputation of an answer man, but his answer likely requiring a new purchase is certainly a disappointment.
