Manchester City needed to beat Liverpool to keep title race alive: Bernardo Silva

LONDON – Manchester City captain Bernardo Silva said anything other than victory at Liverpool would have meant that the English Premier League title race was all but over after Pep Guardiola’s men snatched a dramatic 2-1 win at Anfield on Feb 8.

“For the distance that we have to Arsenal, coming here it is the toughest place in the Premier League by far,” said Silva, 31.

“I feel the whole team knew before the game, if we lost it then the title race was probably over. We felt like we needed to win.

“The hope is there and we are going to fight until the end. We need to keep doing our job that we haven’t lately.”

The visitors were set to fall nine points behind leaders Arsenal as they trailed to Dominik Szoboszlai’s stunning free kick late on.

But Silva’s equaliser on 84 minutes sparked a crazy finale.

Erling Haaland put City in front three minutes into stoppage time, but there was still more chaos and controversy to come.

Gianluigi Donnarumma produced an incredible save to deny Alexis Mac Allister an equaliser.

Rayan Cherki thought he had sealed victory by rolling into an empty net from the halfway line as Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker went forward chasing a leveller.

However, the goal was ruled out after Szoboszlai pulled Haaland back before the Norwegian retaliated in similar fashion.

Szoboszlai was instead sent off for committing the first offence.

In the end, both sides were frustrated at the decision to disallow the goal and show Szoboszlai a red card that will rule him out of the trip to Sunderland on Feb 11.

“Come on referee, give (the) goal and go home,” said City boss Guardiola.

But Liverpool manager Arne Slot was furious about a decision much earlier in the game when the score was still 0-0.

Marc Guehi was shown only a yellow card for a pull on Mohamed Salah just outside the box, but Slot said that the one-time Liverpool target had clearly denied a scoring opportunity.

“If there is any incident we should talk about, it’s when Mo Salah is one-on-one with the goalkeeper,” added Slot.

“Anyone who has been to this stadium in the last seven or eight years knows that is a goal for Salah. Once again, the referee decides not in our favour.”

Victory is City’s first in front of a crowd away to Liverpool since 2003 as they completed a league double over the Reds for the first time since 1937.

“Very happy, but these points count as much as any in any other game,” added Silva.

“It has been frustrating the beginning of the year because we have not done our job properly. We could be closer to Arsenal.”

Guardiola added: “I am really proud we won.

“The first half was incredible. Liverpool had the momentum after Szoboszlai’s free kick, a copy-paste of the one against Arsenal, what a strike. What a player.

“At the end, belief from our captain (Silva), his character, personality, not giving up, we came back.

“We are six points behind (Arsenal), okay it is a big gap, but many things can still happen.” 

Slot, meanwhile, insisted that his side are improving, even if results do not show it.

The English champions have won just one of their seven Premier League games in 2026 to fall to sixth in the table and four points outside the top five.

“You cannot compare this game with three or four months ago. We have improved so much, but we need to improve the results,” said Slot.

“So many times this year we haven’t got what I think we deserve and this is another time.”
AFP, REUTERS