City held by Liverpool in top-of-the-table encounter

Since joining Manchester City in June 2022, Erling Haaland has scored goals and broken records and, on Saturday against Liverpool, the striker continued to make his mark on history by scoring his 50th league goal for the reigning Premier League champion.

No player in Premier League history has reached half a century of goals quicker – Haaland doing so in 48 games. The previous record holder Andrew Cole, who played for Manchester United and Newcastle United, took 65 games to reach the mark.

Haaland scored in the 27th minute to give host City a lead it only relinquished in the 80th minute when Trent Alexander-Arnold leveled for Liverpool.

“We played really well, excellent performance,” City manager Pep Guardiola told BBC Sport. “I don’t have anything to complain or regret about how proud I am of the team.”

Haaland found space between Liverpool’s center-backs and beat goalkeeper Allison Becker with a lasered effort into the bottom-right of the goal when Liverpool was in the ascendancy.

The game failed to match previous high-caliber encounters between the two dominant teams of the era as neither was at its best.

City thought it had doubled its advantage when Rúben Dias found the net only for the goal to be ruled out for a goalline foul on Alisson by Manuel Akanji.

With 10 minutes remaining, right-back Alexander-Arnold drilled an effort into the far corner after being put into space by Mohamed Salah to earn Liverpool a hard-earned point.

“This is a callous place to come and it is not a coincidence they have won I don’t know how many in a row at home. They are a super team,” Klopp told BBC Sport.

“Can we play better? Definitely and we will … It is a good point for us and I am absolutely fine.”

The result ended City’s perfect record at home in 2023, a run that stretched to 23 games, and allowed Arsenal to leapfrog both teams in the table after the Gunners beat Brentford later in the day.