Manchester City and Liverpool shared the spoils at Anfield – but one change could have altered the result altogether.
Or at least that’s the case according to Virgil van Dijk, who was named Player of the Match following his performance on Sunday. Not even he could prevent John Stones from opening the scoring after 23 minutes, but Alexis Mac Allister’s 50th-minute penalty ensured the two teams finished level.
Van Dijk, 32, repelled the best that the likes of Erling Haaland, Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden had to throw at him – which was a considerable amount. And a transformed second-half display showed Liverpool had a lot more to offer than the opening 30 minutes or so suggested.
“Based on the second half, you feel like we should’ve won it but they hit the post and the crossbar as well, you can’t deny the quality they have but I could go on – we were so close! A bit bittersweet at the moment.”
A Liverpool midfield made up of Mac Allister, Wataru Endo and Dominik Szoboszlai struggled to keep pace with their City counterparts early on. However, each came to play important roles reversing the tide as the hosts came back into the fixture.
Van Dijk also picked out centre-back partner Jarell Quansah for praise after entering this season as a relative unknown in the Premier League. The skipper gushed: “The sky is the limit for him and he just needs to keep his head down, keep humble and keep improving because there’ll be a lot of bumps along the way as well.”
The two title rivals end this weekend as they started, with a single point separating them at the table summit. However, Arsenal are the new leaders after beating Brentford 2-1 on Saturday, beating Liverpool on goal difference alone.
