Alisson's Mistakes Made Liverpool Suffer 3 Consecutive Home Defeats

Alisson Becker (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Two mistakes made by Alisson Becker awarded Manchester City a 4-1 victory over Liverpool at Anfield Stadium in Week 23 of the Premier League on Sunday local time (Monday Indonesian Time).

Alisson's mistakes resulted in Ilkay Gundogan's second goal and Raheem Sterling's goal, followed by Phil Foden's brilliant closing goal, causing Mohamed Salah's penalty to pointless.

City, which continues their positive trend of winning 10 consecutive wins, have further solidified their position at the top of the Premier League standings with 50 points or five points ahead of closest competitor Manchester United.

Meanwhile, Liverpool (40), who juggled a positive record of 68 non-winning games at Anfield, became a negative trend for five consecutive non-winning matches, stuck in fourth place, and apparently had to forget the struggle to defend the title, cited by Antara from the official Premier League website.

In the first half, City appeared to dominate the match but did not create many opportunities, instead their goal was threatened by Sadio Mane's soaring header and Roberto Firmino's volley which goalkeeper Ederson Moraes was able to counter.

In the 37th minute, City have a golden opportunity to open the scoring after Fabinho carelessly fouled Sterling in the area which referee Michael Oliver greeted with an instant response pointing to the spot.

However, Gundogan who became the executioner instead executed a penalty kick which soared over the crossbar.

Gundogan paid for his mistake by opening City's lead four minutes into the second half, when he grabbed the ball from Foden's shot which Alisson had not stopped earlier.

Liverpool tried to get up and a counter-attack resulted in a penalty when Salah, who tried to control Trent Alexander-Arnold's long ball, was violated by Ruben Dias.

Salah coldly tricked Ederson to equalize 1-1 in the 63rd minute while ending City's positive, zero-goal trend in their previous six matches,

Instead of using the goal as a momentum for revival, the Liverpool defense, which was indeed very, very fragile since losing Virgil van Dijk, again showed a gaping hole.

In the 73rd minute, Alisson made a mistake pass that fell in front of Foden and the young talent chilled past Andy Robertson and Jordan Henderson to send a tug of war which Gundogan cheated in front of goal to restore City's 2-1 lead.

Three minutes later, Alisson made a mistake again when once again, his sweeping ball fell to the City man and Bernardo Silva sent in a dribbling ball which Sterling had to head at the far post to make it 3-1.

The goal marked Sterling as the third player to reach 100 goals under Pep Guardiola after Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi and City striker Sergio Aguero.

The situation was even more sad for Liverpool as their enthusiasm to get back up was stifled by the charming individual action of Foden, who attacked from the right side before firing a fierce shot to outwit Alisson who tonight had a very bad appearance and locked in a 4-1 win in the 83rd minute.

The result also made Liverpool swallow three successive home league defeats for the first time since September 1963.

The two teams will return to action on Saturday, February 13th when Liverpool travel to Leicester City headquarters and in another match City host Tottenham Hotspur at the Etihad.

However, before that on Wednesday, February 10, City will first visit the second-tier Swansea City in the FA Cup fifth round match.