Man City 3-0 Liverpool: Match Review
The former Liverpool full-back has had his say on the 3-0 loss against Man City.
Steve Nicol hit out at Arne Slot for not changing Liverpool’s tactical approach in their loss to Manchester City.
The Reds suffered a 3-0 loss at the Etihad Stadium which has virtually ended their hopes of defending the Premier League title. Arne Slot’s side deserved nothing from the game even though Virgil van Dijk has a controversial equaliser disallowed.
City rightly took a two-goal advantage into half-time as they won the tactical and physical battles throughout the encounter. Etihad Stadium boss Pep Guardiola overloaded the midfield area which they had plenty of joy from, with Erling Haaland breaking the deadlock having missed a penalty earlier in the game before Nico Gonzalez doubled the advantage in stoppage-time.
While Liverpool were better in the second period, man-of-the-match Jeremy Doku rounded off City’s triumph with a fine finish from outside the box. And Nicol was irked that Slot failed to adjust his tactics to make the Reds more competitive in the first period. Speaking on ESPN, the former Liverpool defender - who won four league titles and the European Cup at Anfield - said: “Other than maybe five minutes after half-time when Liverpool looked as though they were trying to get back in it, that was it. We laughed at Spurs and how long it took them to get off a shot (in a 2-2 draw against Manchester United). Liverpool were the same; 73 minutes, [Gianluigi] Donnarumma made his first save.
“There is one thing that really annoyed me about the game. Arne Slot was sat on his hands in the first half and changed nothing. Liverpool were getting completely overrun and he did nothing.
“Mo Salah might as well have been sitting on a deck chair watching what was going on. Florian Wirtz doesn't know how to defend properly and they were getting completely outnumbered in the middle.
“At least affect the game. Get more bodies in the middle of the park, do something, you can't let the thing happen because all they did is let the game pan out in the first half how it had from the first whistle. That annoyed me more than anything else. Liverpool couldn't string three or four passes together at any stage. When you're doing that against a City team who, at the very least, keep the ball well, you’re never going to get hold of it yourself.”
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