Manchester City vs Liverpool live updates (2024)

• Erling Haaland opened the scoring, his 50th Premier League goal in record time
• Ruben Dias goal disallowed in second half after Manuel Akanji foul on Alisson
• Trent Alexander-Arnold secured a point with late goal
• Darwin Nunez and Pep Guardiola clashed after the full-time whistle
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Trent Alexander-Arnold’s late strike cancelled out Erling Haaland’s 50th Premier League goal as Liverpool snatched a point against title rivals Manchester City on Saturday.

City, who had won every league match at the Etihad this season, were the better of the two teams and took the lead when Haaland thumped a shot past Alisson.

The goal saw Haaland reach his Premier League half-century of goals in just his 48th appearance, a new record.

But Liverpool rescued a late point when England international Alexander-Arnold beat Ederson with a fine low strike from the edge of the area.

The result leaves Manchester City one point ahead of Liverpool at the top of the Premier League table.

For expert analysis on an entertaining match from writers including Oliver Kay, Michael Cox and Gregg Evans, Go Deeper below.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp acted as the mediator between his Manchester City counterpart Pep Guardiola and his forward Darwin Nunez at full-time in Saturday’s 1-1 draw between the sides.

Guardiola and Nunez were involved in a seemingly spiky exchange of words at the final whistle of the match at the Etihad, in which Liverpool rescued a point after Trent Alexander-Arnold cancelled out Erling Haaland’s first-half opener.

As Nunez and Guardiola exchanged words after the final whistle, Liverpool boss Klopp stepped in and seemingly defused the situation.

Here is what both managers had to say about the incident, and the rest of the fallout from the clash between the two sides who started the weekend as the Premier League’s leading teams.

In our Discussion tab here, plenty of you have been airing your thoughts after the game.

Here's a selection of some of the comments.

Tom P: Is it just me or was Alvarez very poor?

Vern X: Neutral here, that was a crazy awesome game.

Patrick R: Doku a lot of menace but little end product . He’ll be unstoppable next year.

• Liverpool became the first side to stop Manchester City winning at the Etihad in all competitions since Everton in December 2022 (1-1), with City’s 23-game winning run on home soil coming to an end.
• Manchester City’s Erling Haaland has now scored against 20 of the 21 opposing sides he’s faced in the Premier League, with the only exception being Brentford.
• Manchester City winger Jéremy Doku completed 11 dribbles today, the most in a single Premier League game since September 2021 (Adama Traoré vs Brentford, also 11), while it’s the most on record (since 2006-07) a player has completed in a Premier League game against Liverpool.

• Following his assist for Trent Alexander-Arnold’s equaliser, Mohamed Salah has now been directly involved in 17 goals across his 19 appearances against Man City in all competitions for Liverpool (11 goals, 6 assists), more than he has against any other opponent since he joined in 2017-18.
• Liverpool have conceded the opening goal in six consecutive away Premier League games for the first time since November 2006. It’s also the first time Liverpool have started a league campaign without a single clean sheet in their first seven away games since 2004-05.
• Manchester City have failed to win back-to-back Premier League games for a third time in 2023, as many instances as in the previous three years combined (2020 – 2022).

Liverpool have avoided defeat in 10 of their last 11 Premier League games in which they’ve fallen behind (W4 D6) with their only such defeat in this period coming against Spurs in September.

Indeed, the Reds have rescued 12 points from losing positions in the top-flight this season, the most of any side.

Bouncebackability, Iain Dowie used to call it. Palace legend.

Thursday, November 30: LASK (H), Europa League, 8pm GMT, 3pm ET

Liverpool are two points clear at the top of group E and could cement their place in the knockout stages with victory

Sunday, December 3: Fulham (H), Premier League, 2pm GMT, 9am ET

Tuesday, November 28: RB Leipzig (H), Champions League 8pm GMT, 5pm ET

City have already qualified for the knockout stages after four games but a win or a draw will guarantee their place at the top of group G.

Sunday, December 3: Tottenham (H), Premier League, 4.30pm GMT, 11.30am ET

Pep Guardiola wasn’t being drawn on either of the game’s most contentious topics: Ruben Dias’ disallowed second-half goal and his apparent spat with Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez.

On the disallowed goal, he said:

“I didn’t watch it. I didn’t see it honestly. But after Newcastle vs Arsenal … I don’t know.”

And when pressed about his clash with Nunez, he said with a smile:

“Nothing happened.”

The Etihad was rather quiet today — something not helped by the early kick-off time — and, on Sky Sports, Pep Guardiola said he wanted to hear some more noise from City’s supporters.

“I wanted some more noise. It’s 12.30 so maybe they are not ready.

“But maybe we have to play better to encourage this.”

Pep Guardiola has just watched his side concede a late goal to draw at home with Liverpool. But the Catalan manager has said he is on cloud nine after his team’s performance.

“It was an excellent performance. It was really, really, really good. We always made the right decisions. Yes, we missed a bit of spark. But we conceded just two shots on target against Liverpool and that’s a big compliment to how we work.

“We know the quality Alexander-Arnold has and it was an exceptional goal.”

Haaland reaching 50 goals in just 48 games means he has broken the existing record for the fastest to a half century by a staggering 17 games.

The mark had been held since March 1995 by Manchester United’s Andy Cole, whose 50th goal came in 65 matches — with the Englishman reaching the milestone by scoring five times against Ipswich Town.

Kevin Phillips was the second-quickest (behind Haaland) of these to players to score 25 goals, but ended up 10th on the list.

Below are the trajectories of the 10 fastest players to 50 Premier League goals. Haaland has been out in front almost from the start and his sensational debut season left very little doubt that he would break Cole’s record.

Luis Diaz’s father was in the stands today to watch his son help his side secure an important 1-1 draw at Manchester City.

Luis Manuel Diaz Jimenez was kidnapped and held hostage by a guerilla group in Colombia before being released this month.

And Jurgen Klopp has spoken of how happy he is the Diaz family have been reunited ahead of Christmas.

“He’s here now and he will have more moments to share.

“I am happy for the whole family and that they are together. The club helped a lot. And the whole group reacted well.

“The family is here now which is cool, and it’s a good thing for Christmas time.”

Bernardo Silva may not be the Premier League’s best footballer, but he might be its most complete footballer.

Used almost everywhere by Pep Guardiola in recent seasons, from left-back to centre-forward, here Silva was playing in central midfield and doing what he does best – controlling the game. He received passes in tight spaces comfortably, and played some good penetrative passes into attack.

What Silva did more than anything else, however, was drifting to the left.

In that respect, Silva is essentially playing the role of Kevin De Bruyne, who thrives when doing something similar from the opposite flank. Julian Alvarez is De Bruyne’s direct replacement in terms of position, but Silva is stepping up in terms of role.

On Sky Germany, Jurgen Klopp was asked what prompted the post-match spat between Darwin Nunez and Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola.

The pair shared some heated words before being separated.

“There were some shouts (from the City bench) after the final corner. Some of our boys understood it and reacted.

“I didn’t understand much but I like them both a lot, so I stepped in.”

Diogo Jota was forced off with an injury in the second half of today’s game, while Alisson appeared to pull up with a muscular problem deep into injury time.

Jurgen Klopp was asked about both injuries immediately after the game. Here's what he said.

“We lost Jota to a muscle injury and Ali felt something as well.

“We will have to see.”

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has just been interviewed on Sky Sports and sounds rather pleased with his day’s work.

“It is a really good moment. It’s a tough place to come. It’s no coincidence that they win so many home games. You have to be ready to suffer and you need more time to prepare properly for a game in these circ*mstances.

“I think if we played (better) we could have won. But we played okay. We caused them problems but our good moments didn’t feel that good to us. So we had to stretch ourselves and push ourselves and really give it a try. And we had to adapt slightly.”

There have been moments this season when Darwin Nunez has looked he might be settling into a groove, but he’s still erratic.

Whereas Erling Haaland is machine-like in his efficiency in front of goal, Nunez fluctuates between the sublime and the ridiculous — not just within the same game but sometimes within the same move.

Openings against Manchester City are scarce, so ruthlessness and composure are essential. We have seen those qualities from Nunez at times this season, most notably away to Newcastle United, but not reliably enough.

There’s a widespread assumption that at some point things are going to click into place and Nunez is going to become a world-beater, but it isn’t always easy to believe that. That unpredictability seems to be in-built.