Arne Slot has often cited Pep Guardiola as one of the coaches he has been inspired by. He isn’t alone in that, but since arriving at Liverpool, he has now beaten Manchester City twice without conceding a goal.
The Liverpool boss is more than holding his own. After all, this latest victory, with Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai scoring in the first half at the Etihad Stadium, saw his side move 11 points ahead of Arsenal at the summit of the Premier League table.
Here, though, there was a different Liverpool on show. This was a version rarely seen in recent times: a second-half defensive masterclass. Alisson Becker did what he needed to do but in truth, that wasn’t much. Those in front of him ensured that Kevin De Bruyne’s threat was limited, Omar Marmoush was kept on a tight leash, and Phil Foden was anonymous.
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Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate were excellent in the main and the Liverpool midfield looked much more energetic and therefore compact. Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister — in part through design and in part just because their legs allowed it — were situated much closer together.
But the defensive effort was present across the board. Salah spent much of the second half at right-back and Luis Diaz was similarly diligent on the other side. Curtis Jones pressed very effectively as a false nine until he tired, and Szoboszlai was nothing short of a machine.
By the time Liverpool finished the game, several players looked as exhausted as they were delighted. Quite right too, with all that running and shuttling up and down in what was a fourth match in 12 days.
"It is easier for us to not get excited because we know what we have to put in," Slot said at the final whistle when he was speaking to Sky Sports. "This result was more about defense than attack. It is normal for fanbases to be positive and it is important to understand why we are where we are."
This was perhaps what Liverpool was trying when it faced Wolves a week ago. This time, though, it had plenty of attacking threat, as opposed to the zero shots in the second half at Anfield in that one.
Manchester City felt post-match that it had done well. In reality, however, the way the game panned out was all part of the Liverpool plan. Guardiola’s side had two-thirds of the ball — and a new low for the visitor of 34 percent — but generated very little in terms of genuine threat.
"We played very good," Guardiola said. "Maybe we missed more productivity in the shots but we played against a fantastic team. Maybe at the start it was 50-50 and we could not convert.
"Second half they defended very deep. We have done something we have not tried for many games which was we brought them to their box and tried to beat them there.
"The tactic was to arrive in the final third and the byline and it happened a lot but we did not score. We missed the next bit a little bit and with crosses it is almost impossible to do it because of their size. We could not find the next step."
City did pin Liverpool back to some degree, but that doesn't tell the whole story by any means; it was as much by the Reds' design as anything else. Slot has never played this way before, really, or at least not for long. But he showed another side to his team — which it is clearly capable of executing to perfection.
Before the league campaign concludes, with more home games than away trips and visits to Manchester City and Arsenal out of the way, it might not be needed too many times. In Europe, though, maybe against PSG, for instance, in the Champions League last-16, it could be a vital template.
For now, it has achieved the not-in-any-way-small matter of establishing a commanding lead ahead of the run-in. It even made the Liverpool away confident enough to sing loudly — for the first time this season — about winning the league.
