Manchester City began the weekend in third place and ended it as leader after a coup of theater in the Premier and a frenetic Sunday that turned into gold the official win (5-1) on Saturday by Guardiola’s men against the Luton Town. The award-winning Catalan coach had started the weekend with regrets. “We are in a very, very big problem,” he cried. The demands of the calendar lead to fatigue and injuries and Guardiola feels in a precarious position. But now City, trying to be the first English club to win four consecutive leagues, is at the top of the table with two points ahead of Arsenal and Liverpool with six games left. The gunners They collapsed at the Emirates against Aston Villa (0-2) shortly after the owners of Anfield did so in their fiefdom against Crystal Palace (0-1).
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Alisson, Virgil Van Dijk, Conor Bradley (Trent Alexander-Arnold, min. 48), A. Robertson, Ibrahima Konate, Alexis Mac Allister, Wataru Endo (Dominik Szoboszlai, min. 45), Curtis Jones (Harvey Elliot, min. 82 ), Luis Díaz (Diogo Jota, min. 66), Darwin Núñez (Gakpo, min. 66) and Salah
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Dean Henderson, Clyne (Joel Ward, min. 76), Joachim Andersen, Jefferson Lerma, Daniel Muñoz, Adam Wharton, Tyrick Mitchell, Will Hughes (Riedewald, min. 76), Eberechi Eze (Schlupp, min. 77), Mateta ( Edouard, min. 89) and Michael Olise (J. Ayew, min. 68)
Goals 0-1 min. 13: Eberechi Eze.
Referee Chris Kavanagh
Yellow cards Curtis Jones (min. 70) and Jefferson Lerma (min. 97)
Liverpool’s problems also have to do with injuries because just this weekend they have recovered Alexander-Arnold and Diogo Jota after two months out, but above all they deal with football issues that seemed hidden or at least overshadowed. In the last nine Premier games at Anfield he conceded at least one goal, but, in addition, against the hard-working Crystal Palace he was penalized for his lack of aim. That way he can begin his reconstruction in the post-Klopp time that is coming. With half an hour left to play, and after a series of missed chances, the French coach retired two of his forwards, Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez, and replaced them with Cody Gakpo and Diogo Jota. There was no way. Liverpool failed in every way. The Japanese midfielder Endo hit the post, Diogo Jota and Salah each had shots under the posts, Curtis Jones threw away a one-on-one against the goalkeeper Henderson, who also prodigiously repelled attempts by Díaz and Núñez in the small area.
Difficult to win at Anfield without running back. Even Atalanta suffered 19 shots in their midweek European rout in a fiefdom in which Liverpool had not lost in the previous 34 games. Two more attempts were received by Crystal Palace, who still had an excellent match. He entered the fray well and was better than his rival until around the quarter-hour mark when he signed an excellent combinative action that led to a simple finish for striker Eberechi Eze. Almost immediately a slip by Van Dijk left the burly Mateta alone in front of the goal. His shot was going towards the net until Robertson appeared out of nowhere, who in a tremendous effort hit the ball over the line that separated Crystal Palace from being two up on the scoreboard.
Something new is being built in south London, where with the Austrian Oliver Glasner they put themselves in line with the fashionable football style, that game of transitions that Liverpool has magnified in recent years. All in all, Jürgen Klopp seems to have made the most of the options of a squad in which he began a reconversion last summer after releasing a good part of his midfielders. The team pushes because it is in their DNA and they quickly woke up to the initial struggle of the Palace. They shouldn’t have lost, but they did because they showed serious deficiencies in front of both goals and ended a week without victories after drawing at Old Trafford and losing to Atalanta.
“I feel like trash. I need time to process it,” Klopp sighed after the fiasco. His first diagnosis is crystal clear, if his team plays like in the first half against Crystal Palace there will be no chance of reaching the title. On Thursday he will seek revenge in Bergamo before an epilogue to the Premier League in which three immediate and consecutive outings await him to the fields of Fulham, Everton and West Ham.
Arsenal came into play against Aston Villa with the lead within striking distance. But Unai Emery’s team is a bad client. He hit the woodwork twice before striking in the final moments of the match with goals from Leon Bailey and Ollie Watkins. Of Arsenal’s 18 shots, only four were directed between the sticks, where Dibu Martínez became enormous to stop the clearest goal option, signed by the Belgian Trossard. Arsenal lacked finesse and the Emirates stands, where the option of breaking two decades of abstinence without winning the Premier is lived with excitement, ended between the abandonment of those who ran towards the vomitories and the stupor of those who savored the disaster until the three beeps.
Nothing, however, is finished. Manchester City now has the dictation and begins a week in which it will first face Real Madrid in the Champions League and then Chelsea in the cup semi-final at Wembley. Then they will resume the Premier with three games in eight days against Brighton, Nottingham and Wolves. Afterwards he will still have an uncomfortable visit to Tottenham. But others would like Guardiola’s problems.
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