As they stepped onto the pitch, Liverpool’s players were given a guard of honor from Manchester City. It was the only time they looked like Premier League champions on Thursday.
“I think they drank a lot of beers in the last week,” City manager Pep Guardiola said.
The dethroned champions made sure there was an abrupt comedown from the partying. A merciless attacking display sparked by City scorers Kevin de Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Phil Foden consigned Liverpool to a 4-0 loss exactly a week after their 30-year title drought ended.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“They were quicker than us in mind — we lacked fluidity,” Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said. “Isn’t it nice another team can be champions when Man City play so well?”
The slack defending and lack of sharpness from Liverpool was perhaps forgivable from players who had spent the previous 31 rounds establishing an unprecedented 23-point lead to become England’s earliest champions.
Such an emphatic loss is not how Liverpool wanted to close out such a memorable season, especially when there are still enough games to overhaul City’s record 100-point haul from 2017-2018.
Photo: AP
Klopp was not as downbeat as the result suggested, despite Liverpool going a fifth away game in all competitions without scoring.
“I saw a brilliant attitude, I saw boys who were fighting with all their effort,” he said. “We didn’t behave like somebody who became champions a week ago.”
It was a night to forget for so many Liverpool players — particularly Joe Gomez, who dragged Raheem Sterling down to concede a penalty converted by De Bruyne in the 25th minute.
“We tried to play football, taking risks, because they are the best team I ever faced in my life with high pressing,” Guardiola said. “It is incredible how fast they are, how quick they play.”
De Bruyne and Foden helped City stylishly waltz through Liverpool and show how the title might be reclaimed next season.
Receiving a pass from Foden, Sterling took the ball past Gomez with his left boot before using his right to knock in City’s second in the 35th minute. Sterling and Gomez reunited in a Premier League match for the first time since Liverpool’s victory over City at Anfield in November last year that was followed the next day by a training camp altercation while they were on England duty.
Gomez was substituted at halftime after some ragged defense.
City scored a third before that.
The technique in the buildup would have had fans on their feet, if they were not prohibited due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead fewer than 300 people inside the Etihad Stadium could savor the counterattack that was capped by Foden playing a one-two with De Bruyne before raising the ball into the net past Alisson.
“This is a team that is evolving and changing — you can see the maturity Phil is playing with,” Sterling said. “I think in the future we have some great players.”
It summed up Liverpool’s night that the fourth goal came from an own-goal after another blistering City attacking move. De Bruyne picked out Sterling who turned Andrew Robertson and sent in a shot that was deflected into his own net by Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain.
“Next season started today,” Sterling said.
Elsewhere, Sheffield United leapfrogged Tottenham Hotspur on the table with the hosts winning 3-1 at Bramall Lane.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier