UEFA Champions League Report: Liverpool v Manchester City 4 April 2018

Liverpool have suffered a potentially massive injury blow, with Mohamed Salah limping out of the Reds’ Champions League quarter-final first-leg clash with Manchester City on Wednesday.

Just as in the January meeting between the sides – when Liverpool won 4-3 to end City’s unbeaten league record – Mohamed Salah, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Sadio Mane were on target for the hosts.

Liverpool blitzed Man City in the first half to take a huge 3-0 lead to the Etihad next week for the second leg. It was how football should look.

The reasoning was obvious enough – giving the visiting defence enough passing options to break Liverpool’s ferocious press – but this felt more like Guardiola the four-times defeated Champions League semi-finalist, rather than two-time victor, second-guessing himself in a major match.

Salah sent Aymeric Laporte tumbling to the ground with one piece of skill, and it looked like Guardiola’s experiment of playing the French centre back at left back wasn’t working.

Only in the 57th minute did Guardiola throw on Sterling, but that might have come too late.

He said: “In this room I think there is nobody convinced we can go through. Of couse it is hard but we believe”.

He said: ‘First-half was brilliant.

“I hope not…he said to me immediately after the game: ‘all fine, all good.’ I hope that’s the case, we need to wait and hope”.

A number of red flares were also let off, making visibility hard as supporters lined the streets outside the stadium and the City bus appeared to be damaged as it entered the stadium.

It will be a quiet journey.

Liverpool FC are in third place in the Premier League table and 18 points behind Manchester City in the Premier League table.

Mane then completed a flawless first half on 31 minutes – the Senegal man among three Reds players to attack Salah’s bent cross from the right before powering his header down and out of the City goalkeeper’s reach.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp was quick to apologise, as were the club, in a strongly-worded statement condemning the actions of their own supporters.

Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet replied to Oxlade-Chamberlain’s message, congratulating him on his well taken goal.

Guardiola shook his head.

During the opening exchanges, there appeared some merit in the ploy that saw De Bruyne stationed alongside Fernandinho, a cool head amid the blurring red traffic at the base of the midfield.

– Salah opens scoring with 12 minutes gone.

Liverpool didn’t want to hear the halftime whistle.

Liverpool last reached the semifinals in 2008, when it lost to Chelsea.

Guardiola also suggested more protection should be given to team buses in general with this latest attack coming a year after a bomb attack on Borussia Dortmund’s bus ahead of their Champions League quarter-final against Monaco.