Liverpool move nine points clear at top after heaping more misery on Man City

Liverpool moved nine points clear at the top of the Premier League after a potentially season-defining 2-0 victory over a Manchester City side in disarray.

That Pep Guardiola’s team are now 11 points adrift in fifth after a seventh match without victory says everything about the club’s current crisis which showed no signs of ending at Anfield, where they have won on only one of the last 22 league visits.

City have now lost four league games in a row in the same campaign for the first time since 2007.

Arsenal are the closest challengers but even they have work to do after Arne Slot’s side won an 18th match out of 20 this term with a degree of comfort.

Cody Gakpo’s 12th-minute strike was all the hosts had for an opening barrage and it needed Mohamed Salah’s late penalty – the sixth successive league match in which he has scored and his sixth goal in eight appearances against City – to secure the points.

Only then could the Kop relax, following ‘Liverpool top of the league’ by directing ‘Sacked in the morning’ at Guardiola, who responded by holding up six fingers, one for each Premier League title he has won.

With suggestions City’s legs have gone persisting, Liverpool began at a rapid tempo and they could easily have been 3-0 up inside 20 minutes.

That they were not would have been a source of frustration as they played and worked their opponents off the pitch.

Dominik Szoboszlai had two early shots saved by Stefan Ortega, who was chosen ahead of Ederson, with Virgil van Dijk’s header from the corner hitting the far post.

But the real threat was coming from deep with Trent Alexander-Arnold, starting his first game for a month after injury, given far too much time and space for Guardiola’s liking.

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