THE TITLE RACE remains alive, albeit to call it a race doesn’t feel quite right for it’s not very clear who’s actually running. 

Arsenal are wobbling with every three or four confident strides, while Manchester City lag behind them with all the sure-footedness of a foal on ice. 

But somehow this unconvincing City found safe ground for another weekend having navigated Anfield and a late deficit. This game followed the cadence of their recent games, in which they were the better side in the first half before fading in the second. But they somehow pulled off a win to which they can cling as indicative of some kind of destiny. If this is to be Pep Guardiola’s final season in charge, will he ignite a valedictory title by finally – finally – beating Liverpool at Anfield in front of supporters? 

This is what City can take from the result. They can take much less encouragement from the performance. It’s jarring to see the extent to which Guardiola has strayed from his own convictions this season: they did not control all of this game just as they did not control all of last week’s game against Tottenham.

They are not controlling these games because they are choosing not to. Or at least they are not choosing to control them as Guardiola’s teams used to, by hogging the ball and squeezing opposition into the own penalty area. After years of trying and much money to help them along the way, the Premier League’s middle classes have become too adept at defending deep and springing onto the counter for Guardiola not to change his ways. 

This is evident in just how quickly new signings are pitched into the City team nowadays previously a new arrival would take weeks or months before they had been sufficiently trained in the art of Guardalismo to be trusted to actually play. Alexis Sanchez once described adapting to Pep’s demands as like being asked to learn a new language.

But nowadays City’s new signings are pitched in straight away: everything now feels a little more compromised and improvised and just a little like…anybody else. 

Hence the gameplan at Anfield was to Get it Launched. Guardiola picked a host of attackers and had Erling Haaland pull deep and into the left-hand channel to compete for big larrups up the field, presumably with the intention of drawing Virgil van Dijk out of position and allow the likes of Semenyo and Marmoush pick up the scraps and exploit the space. And through Haaland should have scored when set through one-on-one after only 90 seconds, this plan didn’t really work, for Van Dijk, in spite of his advancing years, remains outstanding in the air. 

Liverpool’s timid, tepid opening half has become their signature this season, though they were much better after the break, and should have scored long before Dominik Szoboszlai’s latest howitzer of a free-kick, with Hugo Ekitike the most profligate in planting a header wide from Mo Salah’s audacious, trivela cross. 

But having gone ahead, Liverpool contrived to lose: Haaland finally decided to get away from Van Dijk and thus provided a brilliant flick-on for Bernardo Silva to equalise, and then Alisson clattered Matheus Nunes to allow Haaland win the game from the spot. 

Some prime VAR garbage spoiled a stand-out, comedy ending, in disallowing Cherki’s last-gasp goal to send Szoboszlai off instead. The officiating team presumably felt they simply had to implement the rules, but in doing so they again accentuated why nobody actually wants VAR in the game: some rules are an ass. Think of the logic at play here. 

VAR: Craig! We have identified a clear and obvious error: Szoboszlai has committed a reckless challenge and deliberately tried to deny a goalscoring opportunity. We recommend you view the monitor, disallow the goal, and send Szoboszlai off. 

Referee: Okay, so to punish the denial of a goalscoring opportunity I need to deny the literal goal he failed to deny? 

VAR: Check complete.  

The disallowing of the goal did Liverpool more damage than it did City, with Szoboszlai  now suspended for Wednesday’s game against Sunderland. In truth Liverpool didn’t deserve to lose this game, but the table now looks so malign for them that their performance is of cold comfort. It now looks entirely plausible that their £450 million summer outlay has bought them a place in the Europa League next season. Slot will likely lose his job if that comes to pass, but his bosses should shoulder responsibility too: it’s staggering that Liverpool’s historic splurge left them with such a threadbare bench. 

City can meanwhile dream of reclaiming their Premier League title. Though on the basis of today’s performance, they are merely clinging on to these aspirations.