LIVERPOOL 3, MANCHESTER CITY 0
Manchester City suffered a Capital One Cup hangover after they subsided to a 3-0 defeat at Anfield to record a third successive Premier League defeat in a row for the first time since November 2008.
Joe Hart replaced Wembley hero Willy Caballero, with Pablo Zabeleta and Jesus Navas coming into the side for Bacary Sagna and Yaya Toure.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini suggested that his side was not fully recovered from their Capital One cup win over Liverpool which went to extra time at Wembley.
He said: “I saw that the team was not recovered from the last week. It was an intensive week in which we played in the Champions League and then the League Cup final and I saw that the team was not fresh.
“Liverpool played better. They won all the balls and had more pace than our team.”
City hadn’t won at Anfield since 2003 and the wait goes on after they couldn’t raise their game to beat a Liverpool side motivated by revenge for losing at Wembley.
As with the defeat at the Etihad earlier in the season, Liverpool pressed City hard to deny them space and got their reward against a strangely lacklustre City side who couldn’t find the space to play.
Raheem Sterling was outmuscled by Liverpool’s Jon Flanagan while City’s midfield failed to offer sufficient protection to their defence.
Joe Hart will feel that he could have done better with a long distance bobbling shot by Adam Lallana after City’s defence backed off in the 34th minute.
James Milner doubled the lead after 41 minutes after being put through by a cross from Roberto Firmino.
And Liverpool pounced when Nicolas Otamendi lost the ball and allowed Liverpool to swiftly counter attack with Lallana finding Firmino who found the bottom corner of the net to effectively finish the game in the 56th minute.
City had no response to Liverpool despite bringing on Wilfried Bony and Kelechi Iheanacho in the second half and could have gone further behind after another Otamendi mistake allowed Milner to have a crack but Hart made the save.
Jordan Henderson narrowly missed with a free kick and Joe Allen’s lob dropped onto the roof of the net in a night to forget for City.
The defeat leaves City 10 points adrift of Leicester City with a game in hand but more importantly Manchester United drew level with them tonight and West Ham are now just a point behind as the prospect of dropping out of Champions League contention has become a distinct possibility with the Manchester derby coming later this month.