Liverpool swept Manchester City aside to complete the league double over their fierce recent rivals and put themselves eleven clear at the top of the table.
Arne Slot got it tactically spot on and watched his clinical Reds put one big hand on the title.
Liverpool manager Arne Slot went for a slight tweak in his usual high press football but setting to contain and frustrate Pep Guardiola.
The tactics began in the squad selection with both Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota left on the bench with a combination of Luis Diaz, Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones occupying a central attacking role.
Who needs possession?
Liverpool gave up the bulk of the possession in the game's early going, relying on City's lack of potency, particularly in central areas.
The flying wide men, led by the irrepressible Mo Salah carried their threat when they did have the ball. That breakaway ability led to the corner in which Liverpool opened the scoring.
Liverpool have had a wonderful recent record at scoring from set plays but this season it had rather deserted them as they sat bottom of the table for goals from corners.
No surprise then they opted for something a little different from that first corner and it worked to perfection.
Blocking from Robertson and a clever run and flick from Szoboszlai saw the ball worked to the unmarked Mo Salah, who rifled home via a slight deflection. It would not be surprising to see more variation in routines from now until the end of the season.
Calm defending
Whilst rare to see such a passive style of stand-off defending, it limited Manchester City to only getting joy in wider areas. Whilst they and in particular, Jeremy Doku, did find some change out of the full backs, Liverpool comfortably dealt with any and every ball into the area. Virgil Van Dijk especially who was absolutely magnificent throughout.
Liverpool were patiently waiting for moments to steal the ball and beat the City press which they did on two further occasions in the first half, with the second leading to the next goal.
The first was a beautifully sweeping move involving almost every player on the pitch with high tempo passing, resulting in a gorgeous reverse pass from Salah to Alexander-Arnold, who was unlucky to see his low cross turned away from goal.
More joy would come the second time around as Liverpool doubled the lead. Alexander-Arnold found the man of the moment Salah, who found his previous assister Szoboszlai with the Hungarian able to shift onto his left foot and rifle home, to return the favour.
The second half was much more of the same with Liverpool allowing their hosts to dominate possession as they stayed tight and compact, with limited opportunities given to City.
Whilst still perhaps bizarre to see Liverpool give up so much of the ball under little pressure, it was evident to those watching how clever a tactic it was.
A tight offside call stopped Liverpool from adding a cherry to an already tasty cake, with Jones tap in ruled out by VAR and denying Szoboszlai a third goal contribution of the afternoon.
Salah continued to be at his brilliant and creative best with some wonderful passes as he continued to hunt that astonishing twenty assist record set by Thierry Henry in 2002/03.
A fine slide-rule pass found Luis Diaz who couldn't gather before another peach of a pass found Szoboszlai who was denied by Ederson.
Overall it was a masterclass in controlling a game without appearing to have much control of the football as Liverpool strolled to success to complete a perfect weekend for them with closest competitors Arsenal beaten the day before.