Liverpool played like champions when they really needed to, and in the next few weeks, the seeds of Sunday’s courageous 3-2 victory against tittle favourites Manchester City would have germinated and be ready for harvest.
Having led 2-0 in the first-half, with goals from ever-improving Raheem Sterling and Skirtel at the kops end in Anfiel, there was total believe among home supporters.
However, City made it clear with their comeback that it might still need Liverpool to win all their last four matches. One of those games comes against Chelsea, who will be aggrieved by any suggestion that the title is all but confirmed for Anfield. Yet all the momentum is with Liverpool after this epic and brilliant match in which they still had the competitive courage to win despite seeing their 2-0 half-time lead wiped out.
What a moment it was for this club, marking the 25th anniversary for Hillsborough, when Philippe Coutinho drew back his right foot 12 minutes from the end to thump an elegant shot inside Joe Hart’s post.
For City, it was a traumatic goal after everything that had preceded it in the second half.
They had looked like the more likely winners after Glen Johnson’s own goal had levelled the match five minutes after David Silva had initiated the comeback from James Milner’s cross.
Jordan Henderson was sent off in stoppage time for a studs-up lunge on Samir Nasri but Suárez, already booked, really should have gone earlier for a blatant dive.
Yet Manuel Pellegrini’s side ultimately paid a heavy price for gambling on Vincent Kompany’s fitness when the knee injury he suffered in training could probably be held up as Exhibit A while trying to explain why, in the biggest match of their season, they defended with this much generosity.
Kompany, the captain and leader of this team, was still being assessed in the pre-match warm-up and was simply unable to exert his usual influence. He was at fault for all three goals and the third of them, when his sliced clearance went straight to Coutinho, was particularly harrowing because of its consequences.
Pellegrini could cite other mitigating factors on a day when Sergio Agüero was restricted to a substitute’s role and Yaya Touré lasted only 19 minutes before being forced off with a foot injury.
All the same, Liverpool simply overwhelmed them in the first half, and it must have been galling for Pellegrini to see his team crumple in the moments when most of the damage was done.
Pellegrini had talked beforehand about the team with the “cold mind” winning the game. Yet Liverpool played as though filled with raw adrenaline and, again, Rodgers had assembled his team in a way to outfox one of their key rivals.
Raheem Sterling’s energy and directness, playing at the tip of the midfield diamond, frequently exposed the absence of a classic defence-minded player for City in front of their back four.
