Tactics: How Liverpool tried, and failed, to combat Manchester City’s star man

Liverpool began this season as huge favourites to retain their Premier League crown, but Manchester City put a huge dent in those dreams at the Etihad Stadium.

Not only did Pep Guardiola’s side – in the Catalan’s 1000th game in football management – defeat the incumbent champions, they made them look weak and flustered.

Although the Reds had the ball in the back of the net at 1-0 – before a contentious VAR call – there was no question the hosts were good value for their three-goal win.

Arne Slot threw everything at Jeremy Doku and didn’t land a punch

Usually, in such an emphatic performance by City, this sentence would lead into a stream of paragraphs waxing lyrical about the unstoppable force of Erling Haaland.

And he did, as per usual, get himself on the scoresheet, netting the opener shortly after seeing a penalty saved by Giorgi Mamardashvili.

But in the tale of this game, Jeremy Doku is the protagonist.

It is his goal, City’s third in the Sunday evening clash, that will pop up as you scroll through your chosen social media platform on Monday morning.

However, boiling his performance down to that one moment, an admittedly sensational curling strike from outside of the box after cutting in on his right, is to diminish his overall impact on the game.

Starting on the left wing, he found himself up against young right-back Conor Bradley.

The 22-year-old is no slouch, having kept former Ballon d’Or runner-up Vinicius Jr quiet in that same one-on-one battle earlier in the week.

Against that backdrop, Doku drifted over to the right flank a couple of times early in the game, likely deemed to have a better chance running at the slower and older Andy Robertson on that side.

But after a couple of runs at Bradley, it quickly became apparent such overthinking wasn’t necessary.

The Belgian had the beating of his man, and not only his man, but his man’s cavalry as well.

Taking a look at Ibrahima Konate’s heatmap from the Etihad meeting, you’d be forgiven for thinking Slot had started the Frenchman at right-back.

He may as well have done, based on the amount of time he spent over on that side with doubling up on Doku with Bradley.

It made little impact, highlighted best when the pair rushed over to retrieve the ball, only to botch the interception and gift Doku the ball back, which led to Haaland’s chance from the spot after the winger was tripped by Mamardashvili.

Konate didn’t have the greatest day in the office, City having seemingly set their press up to direct the ball to the Frenchman, leading to multiple turnovers – a point Guardiola wouldn’t be drawn on in his post-match interview with Sky, so as not to single out and embarrass the centre-back.

And it was to the 26-year-old that the unenviable task of trying to stop Doku’s shot for the third goal fell, the Belgian’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-them feet making Konate look well off the pace in comparison.

But the blame cannot fall solely at Konate’s door, as Ryan Gravenberch’s heatmap also shows a suspicious trend towards Doku’s zone.

As the game went on, with the Konate-Bradley tandem not laying a glove on Doku, Slot appeared to drag the Dutchman into the dance to spare Konate’s blushes and allow him to focus more on Haaland.

At that point, however, the damage was done.

Doku was withdrawn in the 74th minute to a standing ovation at the Etihad, having put in one of his most complete performances to date.

Job (not quite) done, Bradley was ordered to stand down just under 10 minutes later, still dizzy from the onslaught he’d been subjected to.

The same trio that had kept Vinicius Jr and co quiet on Europe’s biggest stage just days earlier had been bamboozled by one tricky Belgian.

Slot told Sky pre-match that he’d analysed City 250 times that week. He’d seen Doku coming; he just couldn’t stop him.