Man City vs Liverpool live: Jeremy Doku scores stunning third goal to seal crucial Premier League win

“We are in early November and you cannot win the title. You can lose it, but you cannot win it.”

Pep Guardiola may have spoken on Friday with the wisdom of a manager who has won 12 league titles, many of them as a frontrunner. Or perhaps it was a warning to a Manchester City side who were threatened with a nine-point deficit to Arsenal in the international break. If so, they responded. After their demolition of Liverpool, they are only four behind.

And it is Liverpool who, eight adrift, in eighth place, feel out of the reckoning.

The universe had decided that Liverpool would be the opponents on Pep Guardiola’s landmark day, he had said. And for the manager who changed the footballing world, there may have been no more gratifying way to enter the 1,000 club. It was a grand day for Guardiola, in every sense.

Guardiola’s first 999 games had contained victories over many a manager but not Arne Slot. The Dutchman had a done a double over the Catalan and taken his Premier League title. A third meeting was chastening for a coach influenced and inspired by his Manchester City counterpart.

Pep Guardiola summed up the match by saying: "Top game against top opponent. They are the champions of England. We performed really good. Second half was a little sloppy but I am really happy with that.

"The team played good and sometimes you don't play good and you find the goal. But we played really good anyway, and today I am so happy to celebrate it with my family like old times. When they come, it is so special for me.

"From my experience, the season is so long. The teams that don't give up will be there. Then maybe we will be champions but we have to keep going."

"They were better than us. We had a very hard time bringing the ball out from the back and it was difficult to hold on to the ball,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“We struggled with Doku on the inside and O'Reilly wide. Then, of course, a referee decision could have influenced a more positive half-time feeling for us.

“2-0 down at half-time makes it very difficult to get a result here.”

"I don't know if that is the situation. It has been very good start of the week with a very bad end to the week.

"Today, I don't think apart from that decision that it was ever gong to be our game. In general they were the better team - we need to improve - but I didn't need this game to know this.

"I saw a team trying to come back into the game, but it wasn't enough today and that is clear.

"Last season when were eight points clear it didn't feel like it was done already.

"We shouldn't talk about the the number one position, we should focus on our performance that needs to be better."

The Liverpool boss said: "Set-pieces can make an difference - now we conceded 2-0 from a set-pieces. That was a fair reflection us being 2-0 down.

"The game went as it went we would have been lucky going 1-0 down in at half-time. So it has been an influential decision.

"You cannot predict how the second half would have gone. It was obvious and clear that City were the better team in the first half.

"They were dominating the game and they were better than us. We were having a lot of problems and trouble bringing the ball out from the back, so we lost it early and they started playing."

On penalty: "The only thing I could see there was contact - but after the contact he was able to put his foot into the position exactly how he wanted to put his foot into."

Jeremy Doku today is the first player to score, win 10+ duels (11), complete 7+ dribbles (7), create 3+ chances (3) and have 3+ shots on target (3) in a single Premier League game since Eden Hazard for Chelsea v West Ham in April 2019.

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk refused to discuss his disallowed goal against Manchester City but went on to describe the 3-0 defeat as a ‘big blow’ to his team.

Van Dijk met a corner from Mohamed Salah in the first half and nodded the ball into the corner when the visitors were trailing 1-0 to City.

His goal would have brought the game level but Andy Robertson, who ducked underneath the ball, was judged to have been offside and an obstruction due to his movement near the goalkeeper after a VAR check

Man City have had less than 50% possession in four of their 11 Premier League games this season - only in 2020-21 have they done so more often in a season under Pep Guardiola (5 games).

They had 49.2% in today's win against Liverpool.

Another Man City player who had a stellar game was Nico O’Reilly.

Pep Guardiola said: "Nico O'Reilly was amazing.

"In general, everyone was extraordinary because they are still the champions.

"Sometimes we put a full-back inside, sometimes he has been 10 or eight. He can play. His presence in set-pieces in the long balls is fast. He is clever - he plays really good.

"I think he was really good, he has been doing really good."