Manchester City produced an unexpected late turnaround at Anfield on Sunday to keep Arsenal in their sights. The Premier League title race is still on, for now.
Eighty-three minutes in at Anfield on Sunday afternoon, Manchester City were staring into the abyss.
A goal down and into the final minutes away to Liverpool, the clock was ticking on their title challenge.
At that stage, there wasn’t a great deal of reason for Pep Guardiola to be optimistic that his side could get their season back on track.
He had only won once in nine visits to Liverpool in his decade as City manager, a 4-1 win in February 2021 during a bizarre, inexplicable run of home defeats for Jürgen Klopp’s reigning champions.
City’s recent form didn’t bode well either. They had played 308 second-half minutes across seven Premier League games in 2026 without scoring a single goal. In the last four of those second halves, they had had only one shot on target.
There was more, too. City had won only one of their previous six games this year, and that was at home to rock-bottom Wolves. They were the only team in the whole top flight yet to earn a single point from a losing position all season.
The Opta supercomputer’s numbers reflected the uphill battle that City faced; their chances of winning the Premier League title dipped as low as 3.1% as full-time drew closer.
But then, City summoned just enough of the fight and belief that has so characterised their time under Guardiola to turn the game on its head and leave Anfield with three points that might, just, keep their title bid alive.
That said, they still remain six points behind Arsenal at the top of the table, outsiders to win the title. Their chances are rated at a still meagre 8.2%.
But Arsenal are far from flawless, having recently gone three games without a league win, and City have chased down bigger gaps than this one at a later stage in the season. So, just like at Anfield on Sunday, they won’t be giving up easily.
“Okay, it is a big gap,” Guardiola said after the game. “But many things can happen.
“Who knows if six points is enough [for Arsenal], but 13 games is a lot and the FA Cup is coming, the Carabao Cup final too, the Champions League is back in March, and injuries will happen.
“So, 13 games from [my] experience is a lot of time. It [the run-in] is so, so difficult, but the important thing is to be there.
“All we can do is breathe down the neck of Arsenal, being there, and try if they slip, if they make something [a mistake], use it.”
City showed signs of life in a win that could give them a huge, crucial psychological boost heading into the remainder of the season. And they’ll have no problem playing the role of the chasers in this title battle.
The celebrations after the game showed exactly what this win meant. City aren’t going to let Arsenal away from them without a fight.
They had taken a pragmatic approach to this tough assignment, signalling their intentions early on, when they won a free-kick far enough from goal that they would normally have played it short, but this time sending their centre-backs forward and launching it long. Over the course of the game, they played 53 long balls; City have only attempted more in one other Premier League game this season – 55 in September’s Manchester derby.
This isn’t something particularly new under Guardiola. Ever since Erling Haaland joined the club, the Spaniard has been more content to play over the opposition’s press with direct balls to target their big man up front. At Anfield on Sunday, it worked.
Although City went behind to Dominik Szoboszlai’s rocket of a free-kick 15 minutes from time, they created plenty of chances before that and probably should have gone ahead. They had 10 shots in the first half, the most they have had before the break against Liverpool in a Premier League game on record (since 2003-04), and the most Liverpool have ever faced in the first half of a home game against any opponent (also since 2003-04).
In the end, though, they required two moments to turn the game around and prove there is life in them yet.
Haaland was key to both, first redirecting Rayan Cherki’s deflected cross into the path of Bernardo Silva, who stretched out a leg to score his first Premier League goal of the season. The Norwegian striker then disregarded any pressure to coolly dispatch the winner from the penalty spot three minutes into injury time.
The away end went wild. Haaland threw off his shirt. City substitutes ran down the touchline to join in. This felt like a big moment, and the celebrations only made it feel bigger.
There is no denying the importance of this win. Had they lost, the gap at the top might well have been too big, even for City, to overcome.
But there is also context to consider. They scored a 90th-minute winner against a team who have now equalled the Premier League record for the most such goals conceded in a season (four). Liverpool have been hurt before like this, and the trauma of those other defeats clearly weighs heavily on the players.
Liverpool also came into this game on a poor run of form, their 4-1 victory over Newcastle last week their only win in six previous league games in 2026. They have injury problems that mean the same set of players are being relied upon every week. There’s a chance that many of those players are struggling as a result.
Perhaps, then, City’s dramatic comeback won’t be the start of a relentless run of wins. Perhaps they won’t start reeling Arsenal in. Perhaps next week, we’ll see the City that threw away a lead at struggling Tottenham rather than the winners who came back from the brink at Anfield.
Whatever turns out to be the truth, City have made clear that they want the Premier League title back. They are not the side they once were, but they won’t be giving this race up easily.
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How Defiant Manchester City Came Back From the Brink to Keep Premier League Title Race Alive Opta Analyst.
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