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Liverpool beat Man City by 3 goals to 1 at Anfield to go 9pts clear of the Blues.

Jurgen Klopp insists his side are not paying attention to the table although they are 9 pts above Manchester City. Liverpool blew a 7 point lead after Christmas last season so we can understand Klopp’s comments about his side. All the same, these are exciting times in Liverpool as they look good to secure their first League title in a very long time.

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Leicester City and Chelsea are their closest challengers for now, eight points back, with City in fourth a point further behind.

Klopp also insists that Liverpool aren’t under pressure despite being at the top of the table.

“We don’t feel any pressure, to be 100 per cent honest,” Klopp said.
“The things that will now come up, we know about. If you are with us, then nine points is a positive. There’s a long way to go.
“Other people will 100 per cent say, and have said already, that from now on Liverpool can only lose it.
“That’s a very negative approach, but you can see it like this. But we don’t care. I can promise you that we don’t care.

“Today we were completely focused on this game and not the situation in the table and how many points we are ahead of City in the table.
“That’s crazy. Nine points ahead of City, you cannot imagine that something like this would happen. But it’s not important because who wants to be first in November? You want to be first in May.
“It’s only November. We all know that but don’t have to say it as it’s clear. We will try and see what happens in the end.
“The pressure or whatever is not there yet. It will come, but at the moment it’s just opportunity and go for it and do the work, throw all in what you have and let’s see what happens.”

Pep explained why it’s difficult to play Liverpool and described Man City’s defeat as “one of his proudest moments”.

And asked why Liverpool are such a force, Guardiola said: “They are strong in set-pieces, when you sit back and defend in the box, they open up with Robertson and Alexander with crosses, the arrive with Wijnaldum, the second balls, it’s almost impossible to live with the second balls.

“When you get back, when you attack, every mistake you can do, the biggest quality from Jurgen in all his career is with transition.
“You decide before you play. You wait for crosses, crosses, counter attack. You try to create chances, like we did today, we won two titles in a row, seven titles and some people say: ‘we like to watch Man City play football’.”
Of Liverpool’s lead, Guardiola added: “Nine points is a lot, they lost just one game last season, 12 games, 11 victories and one draw but nine points is not easy and yet it’s November.

“Is it their year? My colleague Jurgen can explain better than me.”
Despite the defeat – which means City still haven’t won at Anfield since 2003 – Guardiola was impressed by his team’s performance.
“I think we showed in the most difficult stadium in the world right now, the reason why we are champions,” he said.
“One of the most proud performances I ever leave with in my career, in this stadium, nothing to say unfortunately we lost.

“Congratulations to Jurgen and his fantastic team, 3-1, it was a good game for the Premier League, for the millions around the world, it was a good advertisement.
“Maybe you have buy me and Jurgen a bottle of wine for that!
“We have three teams in front of us, maybe they have more chance to win the Premier League than us but hopefully we can sustain this mentality and try it. In the end, if it’s not enough, we will congratulate, Liverpool, Leicester or Chelsea and move forward for the next season.”

Liverpool beat Manchester City 3:1 at Anfield to move 8 pts clear at the top ahead of Leicester City and Chelsea FC. The win saw the reds go 9pts clear of rivals in a match full of controversy and nerve racking moments. Goals from Fabinho, Mo Salah and Sadio Mane gave the reds a comfortable 3 goal lead before Bernardo Silva pulled one back for Guardiola’s men.

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Man City felt they should have been given at least two penalties, one in particular right before Liverpool’s first goal when the ball looked to have struck Trent Alexander Arnold’s arm. Raheem Sterling was pushed in the box by Mane while carrying the ball inside the penalty box although some may argue it was too soft. Again Alexander Arnold’s arm was in action again as Raheem Sterling’s pass hit the English man’s hand in the box and City were left frustrated.

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After the match, Pep Guardiola was observed to have told referee Mike Oliver, “Thank You very much.”

The Premier League has released a statement which said, “The VAR checked the penalty appeal for handball against Trent Alexander-Arnold and confirmed the on-field decision that it did not meet the considerations for a deliberate handball.”

Alexander Arnold himself admitted he was worried it could have been given because of VAR:

“I think it [the ball] might have hit my arm but it hit Bernardo Silva’s first,” Alexander-Arnold said.
“You have to carry on playing, they complained but you have to keep on playing.”

Pep Guradiola was furious and was reported to have asked officials at half time why it wasn’t awarded :

“Ask the referees,” Guardiola said.
“Ask Mike Riley [the head of refereeing] and the referees in the truck.”
Former City captain Vincent Kompany, working as a pundit in the Sky Sports studio, reckoned Liverpool should not even have had the chance to score as they did.
“One way or another you should stop the action,” Kompany said.
“Alexander-Arnold’s arm is in an unnatural position. It’s a penalty.”

Earlier before the season began, almost everybody (pundits, fans players and even managers) wrote of Chelsea ever finishing in the top four, even top six and they had a legit argument. Chelsea lost their best player for the past seven years in a certain Eden Hazard to Real Madrid, worse, they were banned from replacing him in the market for two transfer windows. Maurizio Sarri jumped ship and the team was given to Frank Lampard. A manager as inexperienced as they come, about to compete with the very best of managers in the business. We lost some experienced and influential players to other teams for some reasons. To make matters worse, our second, third fourth and fifth best players as at the latter stages of last season (R. Loftus-Cheek, N’golo Kante, Hudson Odoi and Toni Rudiger) were all out with long term injuries (No argument who was our best player last season). So they all had reason to believe the worst for Chelsea.

12 matches into the season, and it’s a different song altogether. Chelsea are playing some really impressive football with a very young team and one player currently enjoying himself is captain America Christian Pulisic. The American joined Chelsea this season, although they were banned, because he had been bought a window earlier but loaned back to Dortmund. He was tipped by many to be one of the contenders to replace Hazard at Chelsea and now, people are really starting to believe he can really do the job.

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Like Hazard some years ago, Pulisic arrived at Chelsea a young player full of potential. The American had a good preseason but struggled in the early stages of the premier league as manager Frank Lampard insisted he needed time to adjust to the demands of the premier league and that seems like a really good decision now. Eden Hazard and Christian Pulisic are two very similar but different players in their style of play.

SIMILARITIES

Hazard and Pulisic are both very good dribblers with very low center of gravities, although the Belgian’s is something to behold. They both like to get on the ball as much as possible. Both are very fast on and off the ball and they can both pick out players with some impressive passes. They are both agile and can score when given the chance. They both like creating goals for others. Finally, they both operate best in the same positions (LW, CAM RW).

DIFFERENCES

Although they are both relatively short players, Hazard is a very strong player to shrug off the ball (ask Coquelin) while Pulisic isn’t the strongest of wingers. Although they are both very good dribblers, Hazard’s dribbling ability was on a different level (only rivaled by Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr). But to be fair to Pulisic, he is only 21 and he will get better. Eden hazard is naturally a better goalscorer than Pulisic, another aspect where Pulisic is expected to improve as he grows. As good as Eden Hazard is, Pulisic has a better defensive work rate than the mercurial Belgian. Eden Hazard is a type of player that like that likes to drop deep into midfield to carry the ball forward, sometimes dropping as far back as the defence for the ball while Pulisic usually likes to give midfielders space to bring the ball forward.

All in all, Pulisic is really starting to make Chelsea fans forget they had a player called Hazard and it’s exciting to watch. He is still a very young player and he can only get better.