Liverpool must win at Man City to prove they're contenders - ESPN

Are Liverpool really ready to reclaim the Premier League crown they won by 18 points in the dark days of COVID in 2020? Saturday's «summit conference» away to leaders Manchester City is the acid test of whether they are contenders or pretenders.

Jurgen Klopp's «mentality monsters» turned into comparative midgets last season when finishing fifth, but the team the manager christened his «Liverpool Mark 2.0» have been rebuilt into a dangerous outfit, scoring in every game this season. City's thrilling 4-4 draw at Chelsea last time out allowed Liverpool to move within a single point of the top with a 3-0 win over Brentford, and this is as close as they have been all season, enough to set pulses racing in the red half of Merseyside.

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That Stamford Bridge blockbuster underlined again how City, for all their class and aura of invincibility, can be vulnerable if opposition teams are bold enough and good enough to have a go at them. Remember how Wolves beat them at Molineux in September by congesting the half-spaces and relying on the fast breaks of Pedro Neto and Matheus Cunha to pull off a surprise 2-1 win? Might that be the template for Liverpool? Arsenal also managed to beat the European champions, albeit in a tighter affair in which City for once looked utterly punchless.

This is a different Liverpool to the title-winning team, which profited greatly from the number of goals created by the superb raids and deliveries of fullbacks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson, for the fabled striking trio of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané.

Of course, Salah is still in lethal form. His two goals against Brentford in the last round of matches lifted him to 200 in