Pep Guardiola has led the way with his tactics for a decade but he has changed course and Arsenal have taken advantage
G
reat rivalries are always more about feel than about numbers. There have been only four Premier League seasons in which Manchester City and Liverpool have finished in the top two positions in the table (and one of those occasions was 2013-14 when the managers were Manuel Pellegrini and Brendan Rodgers, which is not a duel anybody is writing books or making documentaries about).
Yet for most of the decade that Pep Guardiola has been at City, it has felt that English football was defined by his struggle with Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool, and by a form of the game that developed as each learned from the other.
Klopp has gone now and nobody would be surprised were Guardiola (and/or Arne Slot) to follow in the summer. The seasons when both clubs would soar past 90 points are past. They are in transition, recrafting their squads for a new age that is yet fully to take shape, and the rivalry is diminished as a result. Liverpool are out of the title race, and defeat at Anfield could in effect take out City as well.
