Pep Guardiola kept holding up six fingers. The Liverpool fans were in delirium and the Liverpool players were jigging and jiving across the turf, and his own players had gone over to applaud the travelling support, which is really the least anyone deserves after attempting to travel across northern England on a Sunday.
Still Guardiola kept holding up six fingers: proudly, almost incredulously, as if discovering the concept of fingers for the very first time. What did it all mean? The number of defeats since they last won a game? The position in which they most desperately require reinforcements in January? The number of touches, over 90 minutes, that Erling Haaland had in the final third?
A new empire may yet rise, but this one is done. And before we talk what-nows and what‑nexts, we should probably dwell a little on the sheer concussive speed of the collapse. A collapse that as recently as a fortnight ago was believed not just improbable but inconceivable. Should we be more shocked that a dynasty this impregnable can basically implode in three weeks? Or more shocked at the feat of sustaining a dynasty this impregnable in a world where they can implode in three weeks?
Perhaps the ultimate measure of the standards Manchester City have set over the past four seasons was what happened when they briefly let those standards slip. Nobody noticed how fast the Titanic was going until it stopped. Nobody realised just how bloodthirsty the chasing pack was until it finally found something to devour. And on a riotous Anfield afternoon, it was Liverpool who came to eat.
No mercy and no brakes. They score early, the dazzling flourish to an electrifying opening act in which they essentially disdain the idea that anybody might want to resist them. City barely do. Manuel Akanji stands off Mohamed Salah, Kyle Walker loses the run of Cody Gakpo and right at the start of the move Trent Alexander-Arnold nails an incredible 70-yard long pass that – remarkably – will not be his best 70-yard pass of the half. But he does so from the base of midfield with absolutely no pressure on him: five City players close, but none willing to engage.
This isn’t tactics. You cannot remotely conceive of a scenario in which Guardiola would want his players to stand off in that situation. But either they cannot or they will not, and either way the buck still probably has to stop with the coach. Whatever levers Guardiola is tugging – refinement, renewal, cajoling, confrontation – he is not getting a response.
For Arne Slot, it helps that the messages are still fresh, that the structures are already drilled and honed, that he inherited a squad finely balanced between experience and youth, that he is so clearly prepared to change what does not work (the Brighton and Bayer Leverkusen games the clearest examples of this), that this team is so clearly a meritocracy. Contrast this with Guardiola’s decision to drop Ederson, presumably as punishment for the rush of blood against Feyenoord in midweek, while doubling down on the 4-4-2 system that led directly to that comeback.
It helps, too, that there are leaders in the dressing room who can feel their own careers sharpening to a point. Perhaps it was not simply coincidence that Salah, Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk were probably Liverpool’s three best players here. All of their contracts are up in the summer. Salah has already started taking his shirt off a lot more when he scores, which is a clear statement of intent to potential suitors. Right now, it feels odds against that all three will still be at the club next season.
And if, on some level, Liverpool can be accused of a certain carelessness in allowing three of their biggest stars to run down their contracts at the same time, with the possible consequence that they will again forget to replace Andrew Robertson, then in the short term at least there is a certain alignment of mission here. Slot’s first season will probably also be the final hurrah of the great Jürgen Klopp team before it is finally broken up for parts. There is an urgency and a romance there. That team really deserved more than one title. Well, here’s your chance, and it’s probably the last.
Ironically, there is in all this a potential solution for City. The vultures are circling; the lawyers are grappling; a fifth title in a row is probably gone but there is still plenty to be salvaged from this season. What’s missing is the “why”. Why flog your guts out for another league title? The treble has been won, the post‑treble slump avoided, every critic answered. What’s the big idea now?
Perhaps Guardiola squandered that idea when he announced he was staying for two more years. But it’s not too late to recant, not too late to give this season some shape and meaning, to give his players a reason to fight. Pep’s last season. The legacy of a legend. And to the club for whom he gave everything: one final heartfelt act of love.
