Football moves at such breakneck speed it already feels like an age since Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola would produce Premier League classics twice a season.
Manchester City versus Liverpool hasn’t been the same since, although judging by the tactical evolutions and hiccups at both clubs Sunday’s game might just see this fixture revived.
Last season Arne Slot’s Liverpool beat Man City 2-0 home and away, games that emphasised the calm control of the champions elect and the comedown City were nursing after winning four titles on the trot. The year before, Klopp’s last, we had two tense 1-1 draws.
Not since April 2023 has their head-to-head really excited us.
This one definitely does.
Liverpool have been wildly attacking, sacrificing midfield or defensive stability as they try to integrate so many new signings in the final third, while Man City have leant heavily into direct football as Guardiola attempts to catch up with a tactical landscape that has threatened to leave him behind.
Both clubs, then, are prepared to play with speed and urgency. That sets us up for an end-to-end game similar to those at the peak of the Klopp-Guardiola rivalry.
Liverpool and Man City are jointly first in the Premier League charts for ‘fast breaks’, with 16 each, and for the champions that reflects a need to move quickly when the ball reaches Mohamed Salah, Florian Wirtz, Cody Gakpo, and Hugo Ekitike.
But their ‘fast breaks’ this weekend won’t be counter-attacks but rather counter-counters.
We know they are pouring bodies forward and we know it is leaving huge holes in midfield, which in turn will encourage Man City to move at speed through the middle.
Rayan Cherki’s two assists last weekend – through-balls for Erling Haaland – are the kind of passes we can expect to see, especially if Man City continue a recent trend of funnelling their attacking play through the middle via Cherki, Phil Foden, and an inverting Jeremy Doku.
It’s when Man City’s verticality leaves them stretched that Liverpool won’t be able to resist breaking back the other way.
This should be the basic tactical battle, especially given Man City are back to high pressing this season and Liverpool, as we saw in the 2-0 victory over Aston Villa, are hounding the ball from the front.
That will squeeze space around the penalty area but leave both sides vulnerable to the pitch being cracked open in the middle third. Again, what comes to mind are the classic Klopp-Guardiola matches.
The individual battles all seem to favour the attackers, too. Ibrahima Konate’s vulnerability means Haaland’s runs will target that side. Doku dipping infield can leave Nico O’Reilly with too much to do at left-back, where Salah will be lurking.
However, there remains the possibility that both managers will fear exactly such an open game and make contingency plans to stop it.
Indeed Liverpool’s 1-0 victory over Real Madrid in midweek was built on a more defensive setup as the hosts went direct up to Ekitike and Salah to bypass the Real man-to-man press, winning second balls in midfield and allowing the visitors to hold 61% possession.
If Slot is willing to concede ground like that for the visit of Real, he might do something similar to cope with Man City. But even if he does, it feels likely Liverpool will be lured into over-committing to counter-attacks, especially with Ekitike dropping off the front line to overwhelm Nico Gonzalez.
In other words, sitting deeper and going longer does not necessarily mean more defensive.
Liverpool are perhaps favourites following the Real win and consecutive clean sheets, built on returns to the starting XI for Andrew Robertson, Conor Bradley, and Dominic Szoboszlai.
But if any team can poke holes in that rejuvenated press it’s a Man City midfield in fine form and it’s Haaland’s lethal finishing.
There is just no way of looking at this game - at the potential disruption in both midfields, at the amount of firepower up front, at the defensive issues emerging at two clubs struggling through a transition – that doesn’t conclude it will be one of the games of the season.
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