EPL TALK: Anfield lives in Pep Guardiola’s head, rent free

PEP Guardiola said it himself. This is Anfield. Angry Anfield. Relentless Anfield. Unruly Anfield. Descriptions he cannot change, qualities he cannot tame, situations he simply cannot control.

This is Anfield. This is uncontrollable. And it hurts. It stings, like carpet burns from falling to one’s knees in disbelief, in horror, as Mo Salah skips clear, as Joao Cancelo forgets how to tackle, as Manchester City forget how to defend, as Guardiola’s control freakery gives way to despair. The cerebral manager with all the answers has none for Anfield.

He cannot silence the Kop. He cannot stop their mockery. He cannot stop their insufferable, showboating manager, forever playing to the gallery, turning gamesmanship into the darkest of arts. He just cannot defeat them at Anfield.

In six years, Guardiola has tasted victory at Anfield just once, in February 2021, when City strolled to a 4-1 victory, inside an empty stadium, when it mattered less, when a global pandemic mattered more.

When it really matters, when it’s a capacity crowd, then the Reds enjoy two full houses for the price of one, one inside Anfield and the other inside Guardiola’s head, where they live, rent free, laughing at him, beating him.

And their occupancy reduces him to pettiness, like a wealthy bully insisting that the poorer kids in class get all the support from empathetic teachers, simply because Guardiola is, well, what exactly? The most successful? The richest? The smartest? What are these perceived grievances that rain down on the manager of the world’s richest club whenever he visits Anfield?

Phil Foden’s goal was correctly disallowed. Jurgen Klopp was correctly dismissed for his abuse of officials. Guardiola was not similarly reprimanded for angrily questioning the referee for even going to the VAR monitor. Nor was he sanctioned for sprinting along the touchline like a headless chicken in search of his severed dome or for provoking the Liverpool fans. He stayed. Klopp went. What’s the problem?

The problem for Guardiola was – and remains – those Scousers, turning into the busybody kids from Scooby-Doo. He would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky Scousers.

The crowd, Klopp, the theatricality, the volume are obvious aspects that he cannot regulate – like any other stadium – but it’s something else at Anfield, something that appears to genuinely unsettle him, unmoor him even, both tactically and temperamentally.

City should not have lost this game. The Reds were a patchwork quilt of loose ends stitched together in the hope of throwing a blanket over the most accomplished squad in Europe. A 36-year-old James Milner went in at right-back, the recovering Joe Gomez joined Virgil van Dijk in central defence and Fabinho and the inexperienced Harvey Elliott were expected to provide the midfield cover missing so often this season.

And it worked, as the fraught encounter gradually descended into chaos. Klopp thrives in mayhem, particularly and especially against Guardiola, playing the Joker to the Spaniard’s methodical Batman. It’s not an act or a gimmick for Klopp, but the sharpened tool of an anarchic mastermind, pulling off a high-risk heist.

Polished parts struggle against chaos

Liverpool can’t beat City on their own terms. Few teams can. Guardiola’s streamlined operation of polished, moving parts – always moving, forever spinning – is ridiculously difficult to stop, like trying to catch and return bubbles to a bottle.

City dominate possession, then their opponents, and then their opponents’ crowd, usually in that order, with occasional variations, but the process keeps moving in endless cycles, until someone sticks a boot into the machine. In this instance, it was Alisson Becker’s boot, launching an arrowed pass to Salah to do what Salah so often does against City.

He broke the machine with an instinctive run, a unique piece of improvisation, a quick explosion of creative thought from an even quicker turnover. And Guardiola knew it, too. He knew in that millisecond, dropping to his knees, as his system crashed. There is no button to press to end the bedlam, no control-alt-delete to start again, just a prayer, on one’s knees, and a hope that Salah misses.

But Klopp’s original agent of chaos doesn’t miss in these situations. Salah is the definitive hacker. He sneaks inside to break things, to destroy City’s new world order from within. In an otherwise defensive line-up, only the Egyptian was given a vague, CIA-like job description. He was a No.9, but he wasn’t a No.9, false or otherwise. He was a forward allowed to drift right. He was a winger allowed to wander inside. He was all over the place. He was chaos. And chaos continues to be Guardiola’s kryptonite.

In the Champions League knockout stages, City have frequently monopolised games and commanded possession, only to succumb to unexpected flurries of chances and goals, as desperate opponents resort to desperate measures.

Monaco scored six goals across two legs, including a late, decisive effort against City in 2017. Liverpool hit three in 19 minutes in 2018. A year later, Tottenham knocked in two in four minutes and then, famously, Real Madrid put away three chances in nine minutes back in May.

A manager devoted to the minutiae of tactical discipline still struggles with spontaneous attacking bursts from opponents. Many of those Champions League collapses came from turnovers and quick transitions. Salah’s goal on Sunday came from a quick transition.

Guardiola could do nothing about it, just as he could not deal with the volatility, the noise and the deafening rage against the City machine: primal qualities that are not unique to Anfield, but they are uniquely chaotic. They tortured him.

The meticulous coach continues to wrestle with the game’s messiest elements and they do not come any messier than at Anfield.

Even now, they are still bringing Guardiola to his knees.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 26 books.

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