Man City fightback runs Liverpool FC close after first-half calamity

Pep Guardiola’s gamble on his squad players backfired in spectacular style as Liverpool ended his side's Treble dream at Wembley. But if Manchester City bounce back with league wins over Brighton, on Wednesday, and Watford next weekend, it will have been a risk worth taking.

And after a spirited second-half revival that turned the Liverpool end of Wembley from a gleeful, triumphant mass into a mess of nerves, they restored their pride and set themselves up for another surging challenge in the Premier League and Champions League. They were undone by a dreadful first-half performance that hinged on a goalkeeping error from which there seemed to be no comeback.

The City manager said on the eve of this FA Cup semi-final that he was considering abandoning his usual policy of playing Zack Steffen in cup games. After the USA international’s brain freeze handed Sadio Mane the first of his two first-half goals, he probably wished he had gone with his instinct.

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Steffen, looking for all the world like a poor Ederson tribute act, failed to get the ball out from under his feet, and for the second year running he handed Wembley opponents an absolute gimme of a goal. Ederson almost made a similar error last week in the league clash of these two, as Diogo Jota raced in, but retrieved his presence of mind to calmly stroke the ball to safety.

Steffen, by contrast, looked like a man whose brain had ceased to communicate with his feet, and he feebly touched the ball as Mane charged in and bundled it home to make it 2-0. Last season, with City still chasing four trophies, he was similarly negligent against Chelsea, his hesitancy gifting Hakim Ziyech a goal that saw the Blues lose in the