City Watch: City lose ground in title race

Writing this column is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the week. I absolutely love talking everything Manchester City, so this column gives me the opportunity to share my joy or frustration with the week’s games.

The last few columns have been very interesting versions to write, with City continuing their shocking form following the international break, giving away a three goal lead against Feyenoord and facing another defeat against Spurs. I’m not sure what I was expecting with a trip to Anfield to face the league leaders, Liverpool.

I was genuinely fearing the worst ahead of this fixture as Arne Slot has proved himself to be an incredible replacement for Klopp so far. I honestly thought the Reds would struggle going into this season, with such a key figure in their heritage stepping away, it was always going to be unknown. But you have to give them credit, Mo Salah is firing on all cylinders, Van Dijk seems to have retained some immense form and all this has led to them sitting top of both the Premier League and the Champions League group.

Following a win against the European Champions, Real Madrid, all the confidence seemed to be with Liverpool. And for the first 15 minutes, I genuinely worried about what the score line was going to be. Cody Gakpo opened the scoring after 12 minutes, but honestly, we could’ve been 4-0 down after 20 minutes. Giving all credit to them, they absolutely battered us in the opening period, Van Dijk probably could’ve had a hat trick.

I was surprised that we went in at half time with the score only 1-0, with some positive moments towards the end of the first half. The second half brought much of the same, City had a few half chances to equalise and gave us some hope, but that was brought to an end when Liverpool were given a penalty, which Salah converted in the 78th minute.

All in all, I’m incredibly proud with how the Blues played on Sunday, although it was a loss and we now sit 11 points off Liverpool at the top, there was clearly passion within the players to fix the issues ongoing. Pep made an interesting call to drop Ederson for Stefan Ortega, which I honestly believe was his best decision in weeks. Ortega is more of a shot stopper, which we definitely needed.

City play Nottingham Forest in the week at the Etihad before a visit to Selhurst Park on the weekend. I’m seriously hoping that by the next edition of City Watch, I’ll have our first win in eight to talk about, but you never know, after all, we never win at home and we never win away!