This article first appeared (in sanitized form!) in the Irish Examiner on Monday 8th February 2021
This means more: Gundogan trips the light fantastic
The filmscape for Manchester City’s 128-year history of grim
and largely inefficient scrabbling at Anfield has long resembled a particularly
bleak scene from a Fritz Lang opus. Inert bodies scattered hither and thither,
scores of bent, leafless trees and the clear sound of thousands of people
sobbing simultaneously. Was his metaphorical depiction of this painful journey
in While the City Sleeps about to undergo a makeover, a City awakening
at last?
Myriad shades of grey and puce are enveloped by the
unremitting shadows of the unforgiving struggle. What blobs of light can be
detected (1981, 2003), they are such tiny pinpricks in the unrelenting gloom as
to represent the aftereffects of an old man grinding black pepper onto the surface
of the moon from a distance of two kilometres.
City at Anfield has been an inexorable process of decay for
many decades, the slow stiffening of limbs (my, what stiff legs you have!), the
gradual emptying of the intestines (Oh my goodness, I’m not sure that feels any
better) and the draining of blood towards the gravitational low point (I’m
afraid I feel a little faint), until all life has left the body and it stiffens
to a crisp.
So, let there be light! Redemption! Resurrection! Rise up
and convert your chances at the Anfield Road end!
Liverpool, themselves ground down to minute specks
themselves by the threefold cogs of injury ill fortune, Herr Klopp’s relentless
regime of Gegenpressing and City’s full board Covid-19 staycation in
January, were surely there for the taking at last. Pep’s great Mancunian
juggernaut, with its tractor tyres and its full tank of diesel, came charging
down the East Lancs Road convinced of its moment in time, its place in history,
with a thirteen-win run making them look far bigger than they actually are. The
Great Avengers, the Righters of Wrongs, the Glory Boys.
The target in sight? A glorious, sweat-stained third win at
Anfield since 1981, even depleted as they were by the absence of dual talismen
Sergio Aguero and Kevin de Bruyne (who knew amongst the white noise about
other absent friends?). City, shorn of the prowess that has produced 200
goal involvements in the last 5 seasons, began cordially and, when offered the
opportunity to atone for two penalty misses against Liverpool in the last four
matches, they missed again, Ilkay Gundogan following Riyad Mahrez and De Bruyne
with his own Diana Ross impersonation.
Hark, though, the clarion call sounding from high on the
roof, next to where City’s first half penalty ball still nestled. Brave minds
needed, strong legs and nerves of steel. Apply within to Senor Josep Guardiola.
The little German, fresh from the double blow of penalty disaster and a second
minute reducer from the otherwise peripheral Thiago Alcantara (this was his
most meaningful contribution to the game), stormed back into control.
Alongside, Bernardo Silva chasing everything down like a Jack Russell on
amphetamines, Phil Foden, with the elegance and drive of the child of an 800
metre Olympic champion and Nadia Comaneci, and even little Zinchenko muscling
into things with his faultless first touch down the left.
The focus may in time fall on the part played by a hapless
Alisson, dinking his way into the assists column with some second half brain
clouding, but let nobody forget that it was his counterpart at the other end
starting the match with a golden giveaway of his own. The vital difference was
the hunger of the bodies chasing those loose balls down. City’s indefatigable
chasing outshone Liverpool’s half pace response with Bernardo’s little legs
audibly whirring as if driven by some unseen turbine behind the stands.
You could hear other things too in the now customary empty
ground. Herr Klopp’s teeth gnashing together, Michael Oliver’s stomach rumbling
when finally offered an opportunity to give Liverpool a penalty (he had already
infamously offered Leicester three at the Etihad earlier this season) after
Salah’s starburst arms persuaded him the gentle touch of Dias was actually the
hug of a murderer. A peeping sound was also to be heard, the air escaping from
Liverpool’s high-pressure century-old record of massaging City gently back
through those Shankly Gates empty-handed. Even the canned crowd sound had been
finally and irrevocably switched to Blue Moon for the momentous last act.
Cue bright light, cue the sound of gleeful cheering, cue
much cavorting about. Even Fritz Lang would have understood.
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