Welcome to Manchester City folks. The superb skill, the infuriating tiki taka, the dark arts, and the dreadful decisions.
A certain Mancunian once equated playing at Anfield with being spun in a washing machine, well try sticking a whole game in there, and putting it on the ceiling in an earthquake. That’s how my head feels.
Liverpool were awesome, they were sloppy, they were weak, strong and everything in between.
Here is what we learned.
Szoboszlai, the good, the bad, and the ugly
Long hair slung back like a villain in a Western, Dominik Szoboszlai is one hell of a player.
His stunning free-kick goal had shades of Roberto Carlos, one of the best I have seen in my eighteen years watching football.
It was a goal good enough to win most matches, but against state money, it’s rarely that simple.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, his sending off, bringing down Erling Haaland with a handful of seconds to go, has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever seen.
One is reminded of Luis Suarez’s goal line handball against Ghana in 2010, but at least he stopped a goal, and the result was still in the balance, and it worked. Not similar at all come to think of it…
A Liverpool squad down to the bare bones now has to face life without one of the best performers this season for a couple of big games.
The pressing game
Liverpool were everywhere. A timid, frightened and poor first-half display was flipped on its head for half an hour, and Liverpool were everywhere. They were high pressing, the kryptonite of an otherwise dominant City team.
It was Liverpool again making life impossible, hunting them down, City were deer in the Anfield headlights once again.
Somewhere in a hotel bar on expenses, one imagines the neon white grin of a German in a Hawaiian shirt smiling back at the TV.
Szoboszlai scores and all of a sudden it goes away. The temperature drops in the building, the line recedes and Liverpool lose the eye of the tiger, are way too passive, and Drago hits back.
Liverpool look infinitely better when they are that team, stuck in their old ways, hounding them down. Slot’s style can often look like clinging on and crossing fingers when winning, and that has never suited us.
Bad decisions
Liverpool can and should blame themselves. Before 45 and after 75 minutes, there is so much the Reds can do better.
Their decision-making has to be better. Too many sloppy passes, touches gone awry, shaky moments at the back.
It is always an uphill battle though when the refereeing is as shambolic as it was.
The inconsistency drives you nuts, and I am old of it. Marmoush’s touch was so obviously going out of play when Alisson clattered into him.
Liverpool were denied, albeit under UEFA rules, a penalty against Galatasaray for the reason that the ball was going out of play. Is the Premier League giving softer decisions than UEFA now? That’s not what we have heard over the past few years.
Bernardo Silva’s pull on Salah too should have been given as a penalty.
While City are under investigation and they maintain their innocence, for the sake of transparency, there must also be questions asked about why it has taken so long.
In my view, it has also been far too often overlooked that some Premier League officials went to the UAE a few years ago to referee games, even though they have since outlawed it, this muddies things too.
I shouldn’t be trying to, during one of the biggest games of the year, to remember whether the referee is one of those that had that side gig. It spoils the spectacle.
I am not suggesting there is wrongdoing, but no one has explained what happened and in an age of immense anxiety and unfounded theories, it helps no one. It is a stupid, unnecessary mess.
One is reminded once again of the complexities and opacity of allowing state power in football.
The Premier League has to be better. If it wants the best league in the world, it needs the best officials in the world, and for that it needs to far improve its transparency.
Their decision-making can and has to be better.