Liverpool’s giant step towards the Premier League title dispelled any lingering doubts

Virgil van Dijk was stony-faced. So was Alisson. The two of them banged their chests and waved their fists in the driving rain, but the look they gave Liverpool’s joyous fans was one of defiance and steely focus, eyes fixed on the prize.

This was the day Liverpool took another giant step towards the Premier League title. For the second time this season, they beat reigning champions Manchester City 2-0 and if questions about their credentials persisted after their meeting at Anfield in early December, this was a performance that dispelled any lingering doubts about their ability to handle the pressure of a title run-in.

An 11-point lead might look assailable if Liverpool were playing frivolously or if Arsenal, their closest challengers, looked ruthless enough to chase them down. But neither of those caveats applies right now. There is such a seriousness of purpose about Arne Slot’s team, embodied by Alisson, Van Dijk and the magnificent Mohamed Salah, three players who look utterly consumed by this title challenge.

Salah’s annus mirabilis continued with another goal, his 25th in 27 Premier League appearances this season, and another assist, this time for Dominik Szoboszlai. His highlights reel for the campaign will be worth watching again and again — mesmerising footwork on the wing, outrageous passes and crosses, wonderful finishes — but more impressive than any single moment is the consistency of his focus and his output in what is shaping into one of the great individual campaigns of the Premier League era.

It was fascinating to hear Salah’s response when asked in a post-match interview whether he felt the league title was close. “I wouldn’t say it’s close,” he told Sky Sports. “It’s just, like, we need another title for us — me and the big guys here in the team.”

That desire has shone through. Salah said earlier in the campaign that he and his team-mates felt they missed out when their 2020 league title success, the club’s first in 30 years, was crowned behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so he was desperate to win the Premier League again — even above the Champions League, something he had never felt before.

It might prove to be a last hurrah. Salah and Van Dijk are 32 and 33 years old and, almost unthinkably for Liverpool’s fans, in the final months of their contracts. Talks about new deals continue in the background, with the club hoping agreements can be reached, but they are playing every game as if it is their last.

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That mindset has set Liverpool apart this season when there has been so much inconsistency elsewhere in the Premier League. Arsenal can cite bad luck with injuries and some odd eccentric refereeing decisions that have cost them. But the reality is that Mikel Arteta’s team have rarely threatened to hit the heights of the previous two seasons or to match the consistency of a Liverpool team who have given their competitors little cause for encouragement.

After 27 games, Liverpool have 67 points, five more than Manchester City had at the corresponding stage of last season and six more than City had at the same stage of the treble-winning 2022-23 campaign. Only five times in the Premier League era has a team had more points at this stage of the season.

Liverpool also topped the Champions League’s league phase, winning their first seven games (including victories against Real Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen and Milan) before putting their feet up in the eighth. Defeat against second-tier Plymouth Argyle in the FA Cup was a shock but Slot’s team selection that day was that of a manager with bigger priorities, including a Carabao Cup final against Newcastle United on March 16.

In the Premier League, their biggest priority, they are on course for 90 points — and that is having played 15 of their 19 away games. Seven of their remaining 11 will be at Anfield, where they have barely lost a league game since 2017. Even if they tail off over the final three months of the campaign, their margin for error is considerable.

Slot was still playing it down, of course. “In every other league, a lead like this would be very comfortable,” he said in his post-match press conference. “In this league, every single game gives you a lot of challenges.”

Liverpool have been tested. This was their fourth game in a run of five Premier League matches in 15 days, a sequence that had encompassed a turbulent 2-2 draw at Everton in the Merseyside derby, a nerve-wracking 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Anfield and another 2-2 draw at Aston Villa before a trip to the Etihad Stadium to face City. That run concludes with a home game against Newcastle — and then, bizarrely, just one league game in six weeks — but they will approach the run-in with great confidence having beaten the champions on their turf.

That description flatters City as they languish in fourth after a bruising few months, facing a scrap to qualify for next season’s Champions League. But the only teams to have beaten City in the past two months are Real Madrid (twice) and Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League and Arsenal and now Liverpool in the Premier League; as diminished as the champions might be, you have to play well to beat them.

Liverpool played well, which is not to say they were as dominant as in their previous victory over City in December. On that occasion, Slot said his team came “close to perfection”. This time, they simply showed more maturity than Pep Guardiola’s team and, crucially, more composure, quality and resilience. More of everything, really.

Guardiola spoke afterwards about how frequently his young wingers, Jeremy Doku (22) and Savinho (20), had “arrived” in promising positions. He meant it positively, too, but the end product wasn’t there. Against a Liverpool defence marshalled superbly by Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, the final ball needed to be perfect.

Van Dijk had an impressive game (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

Contrast that with how Salah picked apart the City defence. As tempting as it might be to focus on the inexperience of Abdukodir Khusanov and Rico Lewis, both 20, on the right-hand side of the back four, Liverpool were every bit as dangerous down their right-hand side, where Salah was up against Nathan Ake and Josko Gvardiol. With Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ryan Gravenberch and Szoboszlai supporting him, making runs and dragging opponents everywhere, Salah seemed to have them on strings.

Salah’s goal, on 14 minutes, was a rarity in its conception. Liverpool’s set-piece threat this season has been among the lowest in the Premier League, but a clever corner routine brought rewards — Alexis Mac Allister towards the near post, where Szoboszlai peeled away and laid the ball into the path of Salah, lurking near the penalty spot — as well as a big slap on the back from Slot for one of his coaches, Aaron Briggs, who was the inspiration behind it.

Some of Liverpool’s attacking play in the first half was excellent. Seeing the way Gravenberch, Mac Allister and Szoboszlai outpassed, outwitted and outmanoeuvred their City counterparts, Guardiola might have been struck that a) yes, there is a way to rebuild an ageing midfield, and b) he and his club might have missed a trick or two in that department over the past few seasons.

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In some ways, Gravenberch and Szoboszlai are the perfect symbols of this Liverpool team, recalibrated under Slot. Neither had an easy first season on Merseyside, having arrived from Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig in the summer of 2023, but both have excelled in year two, thriving in more clearly defined roles — even if on this occasion Szoboszlai’s job was as a false nine, a thorn in City’s side long before he latched on to Salah’s pass and wrong-footed Ederson with a low left-foot shot to make it 2-0 before half-time.

It was such an intelligent, disciplined Liverpool performance. Slot spoke about how it required different qualities from his team given they had a far lower share of possession than usual, but the speed with which they adapted to every transition — from attack to defence, from defence to attack — was outstanding. The way they picked their passes on the counter-attack could easily have yielded more than the two goals it did, with Khusanov racing back to make last-ditch challenges on a couple of occasions.

Salah called the victory “incredible”. “It’s a very hard place to come and play here,” he said. “They are a tough team and they have an incredible manager. It’s special, especially when you are in the title race. It’s incredible.”

It was Liverpool’s first win at the Etihad since a dramatic Champions League quarter-final second-leg victory in April 2018 — but they hadn’t beaten City here in the Premier League since November 2015, when Klopp had only just arrived on Merseyside and Guardiola was still coaching Bayern. Before that, it was October 2008, when Rafael Benitez was the Liverpool manager and City’s supporters had not even begun to comprehend the potential impact of their takeover by a sheikh from Abu Dhabi.

There has been an awful lot of water under the bridge since then — and ill will between the clubs at the boardroom level — but there was always a degree of respect between Guardiola and Klopp and, the odd flare-up aside, between the two sets of players. The rivalry never felt as antagonistic as the one that has built up between City and Arsenal.

Slot’s side are on course for the Premier League title (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

That didn’t stop Liverpool’s supporters from revelling in their victory, chanting, “We’re gonna win the league,” with more gusto than at any time this season and singing, “Hand it over, Manchester,” as if the Premier League trophy was due to be transported to his native Merseyside by Andy Burnham, the Evertonian mayor of Greater Manchester.

But their players didn’t milk it the way their Arsenal counterparts did after beating City a few weeks ago — and perhaps that points to a slight but important difference in mindset.

Even if some of the handwringing over the Arsenal players’ behaviour that day (“Stay humble” and all that), there was a nagging feeling that their victory over City felt like an end itself for some of their players. Even Arteta said his players “know my view on it — and we have to focus on us”.

By contrast, Liverpool’s players look focused on themselves and their mission. For Alisson, Van Dijk, Salah et al, this was just another win, just another three points, just another giant step on the road towards the Premier League title success that they so desperately want and need.

(Top photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

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