SOCCER Manchester City 3 Liverpool 0: MANCHESTER CITY returned to authoritative ways. This may not have been a rout, but it was an efficient win. When Gareth Barry was sent off in the 73rd minute after a second bookable offence, for fouling Liverpool's Daniel Agger, the side reacted almost immediately. Yaya Toure was brought down by Martin Skrtel and James Milner crashed home the penalty for a third goal.
An early goal by Sergio Aguero upset Liverpool’s plans, as it undermined the notion of trusting in a conservative, 4-1-4-1 formation. After 10 minutes, Dirk Kuyt lost the ball to James Milner, but the drive that ensued from Aguero was misread by the goalkeeper Pepe Reina, who allowed it to go under him.
The lead was extended in a fashion that also smacked of carelessness. Glen Johnson did not keep close to Yaya Toure at a corner and the Ivorian headed in at the near post in the 35th minute. At that juncture, City might have felt the sense of command surging through them once more. The visitors had felt compelled to plan a protracted resistance, even if the hosts are highly familiar with that scheme and generally know how to undo it.
The immediate and practical consequence of Liverpool’s decision not to appeal against the eight-game ban imposed on Luis Suarez, while insisting that he was innocent of directing racist abuse at Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, was found in Kenny Dalglish’s selection. Andy Carroll was isolated as a lone striker, although players such as Kuyt were intended to support him.
Dalglish’s line-up has had some good days on the road, but City’s expenditure is futile if it does not overpower rivals on most occasions. Indeed, Mancini would have been concerned that his effort to spread the load had not succeeded at Sunderland, where the absence from the starting line-up of Aguero and David Silva was felt, since the match was irretrievably set in its ways before they came off the bench. With both in action from kick-off, City regained some of the threat that we expect.
Achieving a breakthrough was a far more gruelling assignment for Liverpool. Dalglish would have hoped that the opposition could be contained, with Steven Gerrard, making his recovery from injury in steady stages, on the bench. He could not be sent out at the very start of the second half, but Carroll therefore remained separated from the rest of the line-up, despite Kuyt’s best efforts to get nearer to the striker.
Almost an hour had gone by before Gerrard and Craig Bellamy did enter the fray. Nonetheless, the time remaining seemed small for a task as great as getting back on level terms from a two-goal deficit. Even so, Liverpool did not look fatalistic in the slightest and there can be no doubting the surge in morale engineered by Dalglish.
City, for their part, had begun to seem a little passive, as if variations to the line-up could not dispel some of the tiredness associated with the run of fixtures over the Christmas period.
Nonetheless, City were in control and rarely needed their goalkeeper, Joe Hart, to exert himself much. He may have been icing up, but the return to winning warmed the hearts of the team, regardless of the dismissal of Barry.
MAN CITY: Hart, Richards, Kompany, Toure, Clichy, Toure Yaya, Barry, Aguero (Johnson 71), Silva (Lescott 76), Milner, Dzeko. Subs not used: Pantilimon, Zabaleta,Kolarov, Savic, De Jong. Sent Off: Barry (73). Booked: Barry.
LIVERPOOL: Reina, Johnson, Agger,Skrtel, Jose Enrique, Adam (Gerrard 57), Kuyt (Bellamy 57), Henderson, Spearing (Maxi 76), Downing, Carroll. Subs not used: Doni, Carragher, Shelvey, Kelly. Booked: Johnson.
Referee: Mike Jones(Cheshire).
Guardian service
