The Regista - Liverpool vs Man City tactical review: Energy & Klopp tweaks inspired fight-back

Tribalfootball.com's tactics expert Connor Holden reviews Sunday's classic between Liverpool and Manchester City and says Jurgen Klopp's interventions made a key difference on the day.

In a clash to move top of the Premier League table, a 1-1 draw left the two sides behind first-place Arsenal, with one point (and goal difference) now separating the three at the top of the tree.

A set piece routine, a Nathan Ake mistake, and a huge VAR decision in the dying embers of the game, this fixture didn't disappoint for the last iteration of Guardiola vs Klopp in England.

But what did Liverpool do to regain control of this game after going 1-0 down, and how did Jurgen Klopp's Reds manage to pin City back? Let's take a look...

CITY SET-PIECE GOAL

Firstly lets just touch on City's set piece routine that gave them a 1-0 lead in the first half.

As you can see from the image, Ake is being used as a blocker at the near post, stopping Alexis Mac Allister getting to the front post to clear the ball.

From this, Kevin De Bruyne puts a perfect ball in at the front post, where John Stones attacks, running across Ake's path and away from Darwin Nunez, to finish past Caoimhin Kelleher.

By getting this goal, City have the ascendancy, this is usually a massive positive as scoring the first goal gives you control of the game state, allowing a possession heavy side such as City to settle more on the ball, draw Liverpool further forward and attack space in behind.

But where I thought this would be City's time to take control, instead the first half faded out, and then a mistake early in the second half from Ake, under hitting a pass back to Ederson caused him to give away a penalty, and from this point Liverpool really grew into the game.