Roy Curtis: Manchester City on red alert as Liverpool inflict a telling blow

It is the one blazoning that Liverpool’s renaissance is real, their title-challenge authentic.

As Alexander-Arnold stole Manchester City’s fantasy of a perfect calendar year at the Etihad fortress – Pep Guardiola’s side had won all 23 previous games here in 2023 – he also inflicted a telling blow to the champions’ sense of destiny.

This felt like something far more wounding than a mere paper-cut to City’s psyche.

Last season’s crisis of anxiety, a flaring of self-doubt which besieged even Jurgen Klopp himself, had given way to a spirit of Liverpool renewal over the past three months.

They had lost only once – and that, illegitimately, to an infamous VAR error at Spurs – in the 23 games since their tame April capitulation at this venue and arrived in Manchester breathing fire.

But this had the elevated feel of an acid test, and Alexander-Arnold unearthed the sulphuric menace to turn litmus paper red.

As the Englishman celebrated his immaculately crafted 80th minute equaliser by placing a hushing finger to his lips, he was making a clear statement of rejuvenated intent.

One announcing that Liverpool’s impressively remodelled crew, having finished 22 points adrift of City last year, will not be remotely as easily elbowed aside this time.

Here he advertised that his team could prosper even on an afternoon when Mo Salah was outshone by his lone equal among the English game’s arch predators, Erling Haaland.

Alexander-Arnold’s reimagined hybrid role and Virgil van Dijk’s rediscovery of his trademark defensive imperium have been vital to Liverpool’s early season surge, but the engine of rebirth up to yesterday had been Made in Egypt.

Salah, having seen Liverpool stand firm in the face of a £150m offer for their crown jewel from Saudi’s Al-Ittihad, has delivered some sensational reminders of his talents.

The numbers had been much discussed before kick-off.

Ten goals from 14 big chances, scoring or assisting in his last 15 Anfield Premier League appearances stretching back to January, overtaking Thierry Henry as the most prolific player for an English club in major European competition, Salah has been a constant fire and ice game-changer.

So often the lamplighter against City – he scored in all four contests between the teams last season – here he could not find a flash of inspiration.

Instead, Alexander-Arnold stepped nonchalantly into the breach.

It was the 4-1 loss here seven months ago that persuaded Klopp of the urgency of finding a role for a supreme creative talent with a too-often exposed defensive kink.

The solution was borrowed from Pep Guardiola, allowing Alexander-Arnold to step into midfield, offering him creative licence to display the full range of his skills.

It has reaped a spectacular dividend and here, with one flourish of that lyrical right foot the 25-year-old offered a rebuke to those who believe the season’s narrative is preordained and shaded in Sky Blue.

Up until that moment, it looked like another decisive afternoon had been initialled by the irrepressible Haaland.

How do you stop a player who, here, in just his 48th start, reached 50 Premier League goals, smashing by 17 games the previous quickest to do so – Andy Cole – in the cocksure fashion of Usain Bolt rewriting track and field history?

It is a question opponents must toss around with the same sense of futility that washes over a farmhand tasked with corralling an unbroken, highly-strung stallion.

Reining in Haaland, putting manners on this nostril-flaring, hard-galloping, untameable, 19-hand Viking colt, is as challenging as seeking to lasso in the November wind.

The uncontainable Norwegian is like a creation of Oppenheimer, an atomic bomb in human form, an offensive weapon designed to obliterate and vaporise opponents.

A badly sliced kick-out from Alisson put Liverpool under pressure, lightweight defending from Alexander Arnold allowed Nathan Ake to advance, but once the ball was played to Haaland you knew, you just knew.

His first touch on the half-turn was flawless, and though Allison got a touch to his shot, the accuracy of the strike undid the Brazilian: The Etihad had its moment.

Predator, carnivore, annihilator, Haaland was the master switch illuminating every corner of Manchester.

His chilling efficiency was in marked contrast to the energetic and game but indecisive Darwin Nunez, a critical point of difference across the opening 45 minutes.

City’s precision missile devoured his first big chance, Liverpool’s Uruguayan was hesitant and inefficient and on three occasions he might have cracked the Manchester code.

Watching Haaland hammer nails into coffin after coffin is to be reminded of a memorable scene in the film Snatch where the terrifying arch-villain Brick Top petrifies overmatched small-time crooks who have crossed him.

“Do you know what ‘nemesis’ means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an ‘orrible c**t . . . me.”

For the rest of the football world, Haaland must indeed be ‘orrible, a striker radiating a sense of irrepressible ambition and bottomless self-belief, one born to break hearts.

Liverpool, having faced down a pre-Haaland model of City in 2020, might just be starting to believe they can stand up to this attacking freak of nature.

It was a feeling that will have grown as the pony-tailed giant flashed a late header that would have stolen victory at the death wide of a stricken Alisson’s far post.

As striking as Alexander-Arnold’s on-field salvage operation was, he gave a slightly downbeat air in a post-match interview.

There was no sense of surprise or wonder, he spoke like a member of a team who believe they have the potential to be City’s equals, to go toe-to-toe with Guardiola’s world-beaters.

“It wasn’t an amazing performance from us at all, but we’ll take the point.

“I don’t think we played well, first half especially. We regrouped at half-time and came out with a lot more of our game plan to press them.

“Subconsciously when you are playing Man City you’ve got a lot of respect for them and the way they play, just automatically you think you can’t get tight to their players, and you stand off them a little bit.

“The second half we put that respect to the side and just thought, ‘let’s go for it’. We have to come here and try to get a result and that’s what we did.

“For sure today adds to the sense that we can compete for the title. We have played a lot better against City and lost the game.

“This instils the belief that even when we don’t play well against the champions . . . we can get something. So we must be doing something right.”

The bell peeling in the background as he spoke was the one chiming Liverpool’s return to the top.