Mahrez The Culprit As Manchester City Draw At Liverpool

Oct 7, 2018 1202

By Nigel Phillips

Riyad Mahrez missed a late penalty as Liverpool and Manchester City settled for a barren drawn game at Anfield on Sunday.

Though Manchester City reclaim the 2018/19 Premier League top spot with the point, the draw in the top-of-the-table fixture also puts Liverpool and Chelsea on 20 points just as the Citizen, but behind in descending order due to superior goal rule.

Chances were far and in-between as both sides’ struggled to create openings at each ends especially in the first half.

The only clear chances were when Mohammed Salah misdirected a shot well wide of the right post in the 4 minutes, five minutes before his Liverpool teammate, Andrew Robertson, had sent a pass into the penalty area, for Aymeric Laporte to clear to safety.

Raheem Sterling also got into the box with a great run in the 14th minute, but his powerful shot was bravely blocked to a corner kick which was wasted.

Bernardo Silva received the yellow card for his tackle on Adam Lallana subsequently, and Riyad Mahrez picked up an inch-perfect pass inside the box to fire the ball a whisker wide of the right post to squander the game’s best opening thus far.

Mohamed Salah ran into the ball in the 64th minute and smashed a shot towards the middle of the goal through a crowd of players, but Ederson made a good save of it, three minutes before the Egyptian flew the ball inches wide of the left post with a shot from a mid-range free kick.

Mahrez produced a good strike towards the bottom right corner in the 75th minute, which Alisson Becker saved, ten minutes before Virgil Van Dijk tackled Leroy Sane over-zealously and had Martin Atkinson blowing a penalty for it.