Manchester City underlined their title credentials with a ruthless 3-0 victory over Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday. They turned a contentious refereeing decision into a statement win that extended their unbeaten start to the Premier League season.
The game appeared finely poised until the 62nd minute, when Ryan Gravenberch was shown his second yellow card of the match for a challenge on City winger Jeremy Doku, reducing Andoni Iraola’s side to ten men.
Enzo Maresca‘s visitors wasted little time exploiting the extra man, scoring twice in the six minutes that followed through Erling Haaland and Doku himself, before a flowing team move was finished off by a stunning Rayan Cherki strike to complete the rout.
Hackett questions Kavanagh’s call
The flashpoint of the afternoon arrived earlier, when Gravenberch picked up his first caution of the game — a decision that has since come under scrutiny from one of English football’s most respected refereeing voices.
Keith Hackett, the former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA referee, told Football Insider that referee Chris Kavanagh got the call wrong and should have been more alive to the stakes of the fixture.
“The referee did not have the ideal viewing angle and wrongly issued Ryan Gravenberch with a yellow card. Frankly, I did not see this as a foul, as the Man City player was off balance and going to ground,” Hackett said.
He went on to suggest that the pressure of such a high-profile occasion should have shaped how strictly cards were brandished.
“In a game such as this, the manager has a decision to make. He should ask himself: Should I substitute this player after he has received that yellow card to avoid the risk of a second yellow followed by a red card?”
Hackett added, before reflecting on the wider context. “A pity, given the context of this game. It was a yellow card in law. However, in a high-profile game with a great deal of tension, the referee should have raised the threshold for yellow cards higher to keep the card count down.”
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk echoed that frustration after full-time, telling Sky Sports that the decision had been the pivotal moment of the contest.
Reflecting on the collapse that followed, the Dutch defender said the match effectively split into two very different contests either side of the sending-off, adding that conceding so quickly afterwards had compounded the damage.
City’s dominance continues under new regime
For City, the win was their sixth in six Premier League outings this season and their eighth straight victory in all competitions, taking them to the summit of the table on a maximum 18 points.
It also came in their first fixture since the club were found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial regulations, a backdrop that made the manner of the victory all the more pointed.
The result represented another significant marker for Maresca, who returned to the Etihad in the summer after succeeding Pep Guardiola.
His tactical introduction of Doku from the bench proved decisive, with the Belgian both drawing the challenge that led to Gravenberch’s dismissal and then getting on the scoresheet himself.
Liverpool, by contrast, suffered their first defeat of the Andoni Iraola era and one of their heaviest home losses in years. a scoreline matched at Anfield only by previous 3-0 defeats and a 4-1 reverse against Chelsea back in 2005.
The Reds were already weakened by the absence of key players including Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai, and the sending-off left Iraola with a mountain to climb against a City side now flowing under their new coach.
