Champions
Manchester City will get their Premier League title defence back on track when
they face leaders Liverpool at the Etihad on Thursday.
Speaking at a news
conference on Wednesday, City manager Pep Guardiola believes his team can
stop Liverpool unbeaten run.
Also reacting,
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said the champions remain the best in the
world, despite their recent losses.
Here, we take a
look at the story of Klopp’s history with Guardiola, from their time in
Bundesliga to Premier League to the Champions League.
2013/14
It was Klopp who
came out on top in the first meeting against Guardiola as Borussia Dortmund
beat Bayern Munich 4-2 in the German Super Cup in 2013.
The game was
Guardiola’s competitive debut with Bayern.
Guardiola levelled
up the head to head when the two sides met in the Bundesliga, winning 3-0 to
record Bayern’s first league victory over Dortmund since February 2010.
Dortmund returned
the favour later in the season with a 3-0 victory at the Allianz Arena, but
Bayern had already wrapped up the league title by then.
The two sides would
meet once more in the 2013/14 season in the German Cup final, with Arjen Robben
and Thomas Muller scoring to seal a 2-0 win for Bayern and the double for
Guardiola in his debut season.
2014/15
Again it was Klopp
who won the first meeting of the season as Dortmund beat Bayern 2-0 in the
German Super Cup, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scoring
the goals.
But that would not
be a sign of things to come as Guardiola’s Bayern won both league meetings –
2-1 at the Allianz Arena and 1-0 at Signal Iduna Park.
Just over a week
after the home defeat, Klopp announced his departure from Dortmund at the end
of the season.
And he finished his
rivalry with Guardiola in Germany with a win as Dortmund beat Bayern on
penalties in the semi-finals of the German Cup.
2016/17
The rivalry resumed
on New Year’s Eve in 2016 as Liverpool hosted Manchester City in the Premier
League. Speaking before the game, Guardiola described Klopp as the best
attacking coach in world football.
But it was defences
that were on top at Anfield, with Georginio Wijnaldum’s eighth-minute header
separating the sides as Liverpool won 1-0.
There was plenty of
drama in the reverse fixture in March, though. With both teams desperate for
three points to boost their top-four hopes, there were glaring misses at both
ends – and not to mention a good deal of debate over calls from referee Michael
Oliver – in a thrilling contest.
Ultimately James
Milner’s penalty was cancelled out by Sergio Aguero and the sides shared the
points before eventually finishing in the Champions League qualifying spots.
2017/18
The Etihad was the
venue for the first of four clashes between Manchester City and Liverpool in
2017/18 – although few at the stadium for that early September fixture would
have expected Klopp’s side to go on to become the chief tormentors of
Guardiola’s men after their 5-0 thrashing.
Aguero hit the
opener despite a promising start from the Reds but Sadio Mane’s sending off on
37 minutes for a high boot on goalkeeper Ederson would shape the rest of the
fixture – and the debate which raged in the days afterwards about the justice
of the decision.
Gabriel Jesus’
goals either side of the break took the contest away from Liverpool, and, as
the visitors’ defence crumbled, Leroy Sane’s late double rubbed salt in the
wounds and handed Klopp his joint-heaviest defeat as a manager.
Manchester City
were ruthless and they maintained that approach throughout the first half of
the season, dropping just four points and staying unbeaten for their first 22
Premier League fixtures… until they ran into a Liverpool side determined for
revenge at Anfield on January 14.
Alex
Oxlade-Chamberlain had the hosts ahead within 10 minutes and, although Sane
levelled before half-time, three quickfire goals around the hour mark from
Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah had the home crowd roaring and
Liverpool on course for an emphatic response to their Etihad defeat.
Familiar defensive
frailties were on show again in the final minutes, though, as first Bernardo
Silva and then Ilkay Gundogan pulled goals back for City, but Liverpool just
held on to take a 4-3 win.
Little did Klopp
know at the time that his own team would deliver two more painful defeats on
Guardiola’s side in the Champions League quarter-finals. On a raucous Anfield
night in April, Liverpool surged into a 3-0 lead in a little over a half hour
of the first leg of the tie. City, whose progress to the stadium had been
slowed by Liverpool supporters, could find no way through a Reds backline
bolstered by January signing Virgil van Dijk.
With it all to do,
City attempted an early onslaught of their own in the second leg and had their
tail up when Gabriel Jesus netted two minutes in. But Liverpool again stood
firm to the pressure and second-half goals from Salah and Firmino grabbed a
brilliant away win and 5-1 aggregate success.
City would go on to
be runaway Premier League champions, while Liverpool would lose in the
Champions League final, but – thanks to the football served up by Guardiola and
Klopp – their clashes were among the highlights of the campaign.
2018/19
Hostilities were
renewed earlier this season when the two sides met at Anfield on Super
Sunday.
Manchester City had
the chance to strike an early blow in the title race when Riyad Mahrez had the
chance to snatch all three points for the champions after Virgil van Dijk
tripped Leroy Sane in the penalty area on 85 minutes.
However, the
Algeria international missed the chance to end Liverpool’s unbeaten start to
the season, smashing the ball high over the crossbar from 12 yards as the
much-anticipated top-of-the-table clash ended in a 0-0 draw to both sides’ then
flawless starts to the season intact.
