—- Liverpool’s new era began with the appointment as manager of Bill Shankly, 65 years ago with yesterday. Hence there could have been no more fitting celebration than to beat Manchester City, stretch their lead at the top of the Premier League to nine points and kill the champions’ pursuit of a fifth successive title.

Arne Slot’s men were well worth the three points. They might have scored more goals while exacerbating the aim of gloom hanging over a dispirited City who were always second best.

Guardiola has never previously confronted such a crisis. City kicked off having gone five matches without a win including three Premier League defeats which had pushed them down to fourth in the table. He had even admitted that he was losing sleep over the situation and was aware that City’s rivals had been laughing at their defeats.

City had been undermined by injuries including, notably, to Rodri in midfield but the recent reliance on academy graduates had focused attention on failures of transfer strategy and long-term planning. Guardiola had even suggested that City’s poor form had been one of the reasons he signed a two-year contract extension so he has time to put right whatever has gone wrong.

The champions’ problems had been underlined by contrast with Liverpool’s brilliant start to life under Slot which included the Champions League victory over Real Madrid which had been impossible for Jurgen Klopp. Slot’s next target was to improve on another statistic – that Liverpool had won only one of their nine previous league games against City.

Liverpool kicekd off with all the confidence in the world, promising to sweep City off the pitch. They dominated from the start. In the 11^th minute Stefan Ortega parried a Dominik Szoboszlai effort for a corner from which Virgil van Dijk headed against a post. One minute later and Mo Salah set up the opening goal for Cody Gakpo to follow up his midweek decider against Madrid.

Slot’s men had won all previous nine games in which they had scored first and sought eagerly to increase their advantage against nervy opposition. Van Dijk headed over the bar then Gakpo shot too high in quick succession. City’s defensive concern was so great that even Erling Haaland had to come back to clear out of defence.

At this stage of the game it was only by dropping back that the Norwegian had any hope of seeing the ball.

Not until the 38^th minute did City manage their first goal attempt, an off-target effort from Rico Lewis. Liverpool would have been disappointed to be holding only a narrow single-goal lead at the interval.

City did force their first corners early in the second half but even then it was Liverpool who went close to extending their lead twice through Gakpo and Van Dijk. An even better chance fell to Salah. He caught Manuel Akanji in possession only to shoot over the bar.

Guardiola decided now was the time to push the game with City still hanging in there. Hence he replaced Gundogan and the ineffective Matheus Nunes with Savinho and Doku, partly to increase their attacking options but also to restrain the counter-attacking danger of Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson.

City, however, were to prove their worst enemies. Defensive confusion opened the way for Darwin Nunes to gallop through a chasm in central defence. Ortega brought him down and Salah struck an 11th goal of the season from the penalty. City may ultimately consider that kick as the blow which killed their title dream.

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