Pep Guardiola threw himself back into his seat in the dugout. The Manchester City manager had just witnessed a moment of sheer brilliance and, like everyone connected to his club, he had to fear the worst. Because this is how it has tended to go for him at Anfield.
The blow had been administered by Dominic Szoboszlai, the stand-in Liverpool right-back, and it is worth dwelling on it for a moment – if only a moment because it would be rapidly overtaken by a bonkers finale. When Szoboszlai addressed a free-kick 30 yards out, City did not look overly concerned. They only put two men in their wall.
Yet when Szoboszlai cut across the ball with the outside of his right boot, he sent it curling and dipping away from Gianluigi Donnarumma and in off the post. It was a goal which was fit to win any game. Just not this one. At one point during the celebrations, the Liverpool defender, Ibrahima Konaté, wandered over with his hands on his head. What had he just seen? Nothing yet, it turned out.
City’s Premier League title challenge looked set to turn to dust because they really needed to win to cut the gap to the leaders, Arsenal, which stood at nine points at kick-off time. They had controlled the first-half without getting a reward. And, as so often since the turn of the year, they had allowed their opponents back into the game after the break.
