Premier League: Liverpool Share Spoils With Man. City At Etihad

Manchester City had a tough game with tough rivals, Liverpool against which they drew 1-1 at Etihad Stadium as their table lead over closest rivals gets slimmer.

Erling Haaland put the hosts ahead as Nathan Ake found him with a pass and latched on before rifling the ball home whilst in between Alexander-Arnold and Dominik Szoboszlai. 

Liverpool leveled up the scores after halftime from Alexander-Arnold's strike. In the build up to the equalizer, Mohamed Salah received the ball from cross-field lob and offloaded the ball to Alexander-Arnold, who after getting a tap on the ball struck it through the defence to beat Ederson to the goal. 

The equalizer was the player's first goal of the season and it could not be satisfactory enough to have earned that in a tough game against a side like City. On the other hand, Haaland completed his 50th Premier League goal and eclipsethe  previous record set for the fastest goal in the league by Andy Cole.  

Quick Overview

Liverpool stood up to the pressure of playing at Etihad and come from behind to force a draw in a game that should have gone the way of City until Alexander-Arnold found a narrow path to steer the ball through to the net. 

Darwin Nunez was wasteful with the lofty chance he had, and unlike him, Haaland had there about the same in a fast break and gave City the lead they needed. Until then, Liverpool had fair control of the game than city. However, City proved to be blunt on the attack to have taken the lead.

Liverpool tried to undo the deficit and tried to create chances to get the ball in the net but City remained strong at the back to fend off Nunez and prevent Salah from breaking in. 

Eventually, Liverpool cracked the defence and City found leaving Alexander-Arnold unchallenged enough too costly that he struck the ball through the crowded box to beat Ederson to the goal.

Manuel Akanji nearly cost Allison Becker too much on two occasions but the VAR ruled out what could have been goals as fouls for contacts with the goalkeeper. Allison had his fair share of floppy handling of that ball that nearly got to Haaland following a back pass.