Manchester City was held to a 1-1 draw by Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium, failing to match the English premier league record of 24 successive home victories across all competitions.
Erling Haaland opened the score with his 50th Premier League goal, but Trent Alexander-Arnold scored a spectacular late strike to give the visitors a point.
However, the draw guarantees that City will remain at the top until next week.
picture
After visiting custodian Alisson mishandled a kick, Haaland scored the game’s first goal on the 27th minute, taking advantage of a ball from Nathan Ake and drilling a low shot into the bottom corner.The Norwegian forward broke Andrew Cole’s previous record of 50 goals in 65 appearances in the top level, accomplishing the milestone in just 48 games.
Darwin Nunez missed a number of excellent opportunities to take advantage of the game, including a header that a fully-stretched Ederson brilliantly stopped. Liverpool had contributed to a fast-paced and evenly matched first half.
The visitors stunned the home crowd ten minutes from time when Alexander-Arnold rifled a superb low strike into the far corner to secure a share of the spoils, despite City having the better opportunities in the second half.
With one game remaining in the top flight this weekend, City is only one point clear of the second-place Merseysiders, who set the English top flight record of 24 successive home victories in all competitions back in the 1890s.
The Merseysiders and their redesigned midfield have been widely suggested to be contenders this season, but this was possibly the litmus test.
Although Alexander-Arnold’s incredible equaliser gave Man City the feeling that they should have increased their lead earlier, the game was actually well contested, with the visitors playing strong defence and holding their own for extended periods of time against Pep Guardiola’s Treble champions.
Jurgen Klopp will be the happier manager in a match between the top two teams because his team once more had to come back from behind, was playing away from home, and faced City’s dominant play at the Etihad—in fact, the Citizens were undefeated at home in 2023 until TAA got involved.
Liverpool may drop a spot or two depending on the outcome of the remaining games in this round of fixtures, but having completed 13 games, one loss, and their hardest away game of the year, this was a huge boost for the Reds, who will now have renewed confidence that they can still accomplish great things this season.
