Man City player ratings vs Liverpool: Kevin De Bruyne looks done! Champions’ captain goes missing as Pep Guardiola’s ship continues to sink without Erling Haaland

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Manchester City used to relish those top-of-the-table clashes at home to Liverpool, but this was all about enduring a 90 minutes in which they knew they were miles apart from Arne Slot’s slick winning machine, who edged closer to the Premier League title with a 2-0 win over the champions.

Mohamed Salah scored the first and set up the second for Dominik Szoboszlai in a manner reminiscent of the way Kylian Mbappe ravaged City and dumped them out of the Champions League in midweek. It was not a virtuoso display like the Frenchman’s, but it was befitting of the way Salah has dominated this season, and City had no one who could stop him or compete with him, not least Kevin De Bruyne, who looked utterly out of place in a fixture of this level.

The writing was on the wall from the moment the starting XIs landed, with Erling Haaland not in the squad due to injury and Ruben Dias, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan confined to the bench. The crowd were still up for the occasion, and Jeremy Doku’s twisting runs down the left and Savinho’s pace on the other flank gave them hope, but they were let down by their propensity to give the ball away too often, with the woeful De Bruyne the biggest culprit in that respect.

City were undone by Liverpool’s quick-thinking as no one expected Alexis Mac Allister to find Szoboszlai with a floor pass from the corner and for the Hungarian to flick the ball to Salah, whose shot was deflected past Ederson by Nathan Ake. More criticism could be made of how they let in the second, Josko Gvardiol failing to cut out the pass towards Salah or stop the Egyptian from teeing up Szoboszlai, who was picked up by no one as he wrong-footed Ederson to score. In between both goals, City did have the ball in the net from Omar Marmoush, but the Egyptian was clearly offside.

Liverpool had the ball in the net again from Curtis Jones in the second half, but City were spared by a marginal offside spotted by VAR. The decision was greeted by the biggest roar of the afternoon from the home fans, who were stunned into silence by their own team’s impotence against the champions elect.

GOAL rates City’s players from the Etihad Stadium…

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