LONDON: Five points continue to separate Manchester City from Liverpool after both wasted their anticipated opportunities to press ahead. Instead they ended a frustrating weekend like Formula I racing cars still stuck in the pack after the opening lap.

City may be the more disappointed after being held 1-1 at struggling Aston Villa. Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool had a more challenging task in confronting not only Everton in the Merseyside derby but yet another Anfield injury crisis.

The derby was unusually entertaining. Play swung from end to end. Tom Davies hit the posts for Everton and so did Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz for Liverpool. Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford was the man of the match. He denied Liverpool substitute Roberto Firmino three times while Mo Salah hit a post again in stoppage time.

Former Liverpool defender Conor Coady thought he had broken the deadlock against his old club but the goal was disallowed on VAR advice. Liverpool keeper also denied Maupay and Dwight McNeil with what Klopp described as “an insane save.”

The draw ended Liverpool’s brief revival with Premier wins against Bournemouth and Newcastle. Key players are still far from their best and Virgil Van Dijk was fortunate to be shown only yellow and not red for a bad foul on Amadou Onana. Consolation for Klopp is the bright form of youngsters Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho.

Nine points is Klopp’s lowest points tally after six league games. He said: “The derby is always the big fight that everybody expects from both teams. We didn’t play extremely well but we created enough. Top chances but we just didn’t use them. The first rule of derbies is, if you can’t win the derby, don’t lose it.”

Klopp shrugged off an incident after Coady’s goal when bottle of water was thrown towards him from the top of the Main Stand. The hooligan was detained and given a stadium ban. Klopp said: “I didn’t see it at the time. A glass bottle would have been really dangerous. It was not. It was plastic.”

Liverpool go to Napoli in the Champions League on Wednesday and host Wolves on Saturday in a Premier date they will badly need to win.

City could have gone top of the table, at least briefly, with victory at Aston Villa. Instead they were fortunate to had north from the Midlands with a 1:1 draw after Philippe Coutinho had a last-kick goal disallowed because referee Simon Hooper had already blown his whistle – wrongly as TV proved – for offside.

Villa deserved the point secured by a Leon Bailey equaliser which eased the pressure on manager Steven Gerrard. Earlier in the second half Kevin de Bruyne had set up Erling Haaland’s 10th goal of the campaign only for City to fail to capitalise.

Then it was Villa’s turn almost to snatch victory. The excitement which exploded as Coutinho’s shot hit the net meant many fans did not hear referee Simon Hooper’s earlier whistle.

City manager Pep Guardiola accepted that his team were below their best. He said: “We struggled in the first half to create chances. Sometimes we were not precise, our crossing was not good, but we didn’t play badly. We had enough chances to score but it’s football, it happens.”

This was not the best start to a difficult week.

City go to Sevilla on Tuesday to launch their latest Champions League campaign. The arrival of Haaland and his immediate impact means they will be greater favourites than ever to finally clinch the trophy awaited by their Abu Dhabi owners. Then it will be back to the Premier League bread-and-butter next Saturday with a testing home clash against Tottenham.

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