LIVERPOOL: Manchester City’s quest to be the latest “Invincibles” of English football ended thanks to nine minutes of mayhem on Sunday.

Hounded and harassed by Liverpool’s high press inside a raucous Anfield, City fell apart through a series of defensive mistakes and went from being level at 1-1 after 59 minutes to trailing 4-1 in the 68th minute.

City defender Kyle Walker rubbed his face in disbelief. Pep Guardiola, City’s manager, looked at the ground in shock.

City recovered admirably to lose 4-3 but its five-month, 22-match unbeaten start to the league is over. Arsenal’s undefeated Premier League season in 2003-04 won’t be emulated for at least another year. Preston were the other team to go through a top-flight season unbeaten, in 1888-89.

“We lost a little bit of our control,” Guardiola said of the atmosphere. “We were involved in the environment of Anfield for many, many reasons.

“After the second goal they scored two in a few minutes and it is hard to recover from that. In every press conference for the last few months you have said that the Premier League is done and I always said ‘no, it is still to be done’. We will defend our position game by game.”

This was seen as the toughest test in City’s final 16 games of the season the team hasn’t won at Anfield since 2003 and so it proved.

Liverpool were without the departed Philippe Coutinho and injured new signing Virgil van Dijk, but showed once again that there is no more dangerous team in matches between members of England’s “Big 6”.

Jurgen Klopp sent out an attack-minded line-up and was rewarded. Liverpool’s effervescent front three Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah all scored, as did the man who might replace Coutinho in its so-called “Fab 4” attack, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

The win moved Liverpool level on 47 points with Chelsea and second-placed Manchester United, with all three teams 15 points behind City.

Many wondered if Liverpool’s attack would stutter following the departure of Coutinho early this week. The win over City answered that.

“It sent the right statement,” Klopp said. “It’’s not that I said in the meeting, ‘Boys, by the way, it would help a lot if you could win tonight and no one speaks about Philippe Coutinho’’ because we like talking about him. He was probably still jumping in his living room in Barcelona.”

Oxlade-Chamberlain gave Liverpool the lead in the ninth minute with a long-range strike that Coutinho often produced.

The home side held onto their lead until five minutes before half-time, when Leroy Sane gathered a raking cross-field ball from Kyle Walker and beat Loris Karius at his near post with a rasping left-foot shot that the Liverpool keeper should have saved.

Then came City’s implosion.

Firmino knocked John Stones off the ball and deftly chipped goalkeeper Ederson to regain the lead for Liverpool and just two minutes later Mane, who had struck the woodwork himself seconds before, smashed a shot into the top corner after Nicolas Otamendi was dispossessed.

With City rocking, Salah scored Liverpool’s fourth with a left-footed shot from more than 35 yards out after Ederson had misplaced a clearance.

“The pressing around the goals was different planet,” Klopp said, adding of the atmosphere: “It’s one of the best places in the world of football if we are on our toes.

He said it was a wonderful advert for the Premier League.

“This was a historical game you will talk about in 20 years because it looks like City will not lose another one this year. If you combine quality with attitude you see a game like this. You will find someone who wants to talk about defending, no clean sheet, but he can blow up my boots.”

City threatened an amazing comeback after goals by Bernardo Silva, in the 84th, and Ilkay Gundogan, in the first minute of stoppage time, but Liverpool held on in a nervy finale.

“To lose is never good news,” Guardiola said. “But all teams lose games. What is important when you lose games, is to not lose again.”

Sane added: “At the end of the season, when we win the Premier League, nobody cares if we lost a game.”

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2018