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Man City rout Liverpool 4-1 without injured Haaland

Published:Sunday | April 2, 2023 | 10:21 AM
Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne (right) celebrates with teammate Jack Grealish after scoring his side’s second goal during an English Premier League football match against Liverpool at Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England yesterday.
Jon Super
Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne (right) celebrates with teammate Jack Grealish after scoring his side’s second goal during an English Premier League football match against Liverpool at Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England yesterday.

MANCHESTER, England (AP):

NO ERLING Haaland, no problem for Manchester City.

Even without the Premier League’s leading scorer, Pep Guardiola’s team came from behind to rout Liverpool 4-1 on Saturday and stay in pursuit of first-place Arsenal.

Haaland, who has scored 42 goals in all competitions this season, was ruled out of the game at Etihad Stadium after failing to recover from a groin injury.

But, even after falling behind to a 20th-minute strike from Mohamed Salah, City powered back with goals from Julian Alvarez, Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish to keep the pressure on Arsenal and deliver another blow to Liverpool’s Champions League qualification hopes.

City’s dominance was so complete that, by the end, Jurgen Klopp said the result could have been even worse for his team.

“We just had to follow, as they did whatever they wanted,” the Liverpool manager said. “We were lucky they weren’t in a greedy mood.”

BIG TEST

The game represented one of the biggest remaining tests in City’s league campaign, and defeat would have given Arsenal the chance to extend its lead at the top to 11 points.

That looked like a real possibility when Liverpool scored against the run of play early on, with Diogo Jota bursting past City’s high defensive line and laying off to Salah to sweep a shot into the corner.

But City evened the score when Alvarez, Argentina’s World Cup-winning striker, converted Grealish’s cross in the 27th.

Liverpool had no answer to City’s attacking quality in the second half, with De Bruyne poking home a cross from Riyad Mahrez less than a minute after the restart.

Gundogan added a third from close range in the 54th, and Grealish got a deserved goal to round off the scoring in the 74th.

It was Guardiola’s 100th home win in the league with City in 128 games at Etihad Stadium. He is the quickest manager to achieve that feat, beating Arsene Wenger’s record of reaching that total in 139 games.

“Our display was almost perfect from the first minute to minute 93, in the way we played against a team, our big rival in the last seasons,” Guardiola said.