Since Pep Guardiola won his first Premier League title back in 2018, only two teams have been able to compete with Manchester City: Arsenal and Liverpool. The Gunners led the way for the majority of the 2022-23 season before they were overhauled by Guardiola's treble-chasing juggernaut, while only two points could separate them in 2023-24, when City won a fourth successive title.

In Guardiola's 1000th game as a coach, in which he was serenaded from start to finish by the Etihad faithful, he watched his side swat Liverpool aside in a merciless act of revenge for what occurred last season. And in doing so he and his team trimmed Arsenal's lead at the top of the table down to four points and sent out a message to the Gunners: 'Not so fast'.

Arsenal should know as well as anyone that you cannot ever count City out of a title race. Mikel Arteta's side led the table for 248 days in 2022-23, the longest period for any team that did not win the title, and at one point held an eight-point advantage. Arsenal then signed Declan Rice the following summer and shored up their defence but still fell short again, even though City lost Kevin De Bruyne for half the season and Erling Haaland for two months. 

The Gunners seem to have learned from past mistakes and have assembled a deep squad that can absorb injuries to the likes of Viktor Gyokeres and Martin Odegaard. And yet watching the way City ripped their way through Liverpool on Sunday, with the mesmeric Jeremy Doku leading their charge and Haaland scoring for the ninth time in 11 matches, it must have been difficult not to be overcome by a sense of dread.

With Liverpool now trailing Arsenal by eight points, they are fading from the title race as dramatically as the way they wrapped their tentacles around it at this stage of last season. But City are right back in the mix, and their chase of Arsenal has truly now begun.

GOAL breaks down the winners & losers from the Etihad Stadium…

Getty Images SportWINNER: Jeremy Doku

If it hadn't been for Romelu Lukaku, Doku could have been playing for Liverpool on Sunday, giving Matheus Nunes and Ruben Dias the run around. The Reds set their eyes upon the winger when he was still a youth player with Anderlecht and saw him as a potential successor to Sadio Mane. Simon Mignolet, Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum were among the players to greet the Doku family at Liverpool's Melwood training ground in 2018 while Steven Gerrard – then a youth coach – showed them tactical videos. 

It was an offer that Doku, aged 15 at the time, could hardly refuse. But Lukaku, who had also come through Anderlecht's academy and maintained good relations with staff, took it upon himself to change the youngster's mind and gave him a video call. It worked, and Doku stayed in Belgium for another two years before joining Rennes and eventually landing at City in 2023. And after this whirlwind display, City should send Lukaku a bottle of champagne in the post.

Doku was unplayable here, becoming the first Premier League player since compatriot Eden Hazard in 2019 to score, win 10 or more duels, complete seven or more dribbles, create three or more chances and have three or more shots on target in the same game. He tore Conor Bradley to pieces just five days after the Liverpool full-back had put Vinicius Jr in his back pocket. 

"He had an outstanding game against one of the best full-backs in the Premier League," said Guardiola. "Do you think I teach him how to dribble openings? This is natural talent."

Doku's natural talent has always been easily visible, but adapting to City's intricate play has not always been easy for him. The story of his City career in the first two years was one of many flashes of brilliance but little end product and not a whole lot of consistency. This season, though, he looks to have finally cracked the code, and this performance was no anomaly after he helped destroy Manchester United and Burnley earlier in the campaign.

AdvertisementAFPLOSER: Conor Bradley & Ibrahima Konate

Bradley was the toast of Liverpool last week for his dominant performance against Real Madrid, but he was given a brutal reminder of how quickly things can turn on Sunday. After being lauded for how he dealt with Vinicius, he simply had no answer when it came to shutting down with Doku. Arne Slot attempted to stem the bleeding by getting Ryan Gravenberch to double up with Bradley on the City winger in the second half, and it worked for a period as Liverpool began to improve and found their feet, albeit not a goal.

But Bradley then found himself with a twin threat of his own to deal with when presented with the marauding Nico O'Reilly while Doku led the way, and it fell to Ibrahima Konate to try and stop the Belgian when he collected O'Reilly's pass on the edge of the area, but he stood no chance. Konate seemed unsure whether to get tight on Doku or to try and block his shooting angles, but failed miserably on both fronts as the City man wrapped up the points.

Konate had lost another crucial battle earlier in the game when he was out-jumped by Haaland for the first goal. The France defender has had a patchy season and looks set to run down his contract so he can join Real Madrid for free like his former team-mate Trent Alexander-Arnold. Liverpool fans will be feeling slightly better about that inevitability after a performance like this.

Getty Images SportWINNER: Pep Guardiola

A lot of managers would have been happy to have one banner displayed to mark their 1000th game; Guardiola got three, but it was no less than he deserved. City have had the financial resources to compete at the highest level since Sheikh Mansour bought the club in 2008, but it was not until Guardiola agreed to take over in 2016 that the project the Abu Dhabi royal family had envisaged could truly take flight.

Guardiola became a household name due to his achievements with Barcelona, and while his stint at Bayern Munich was impressive, it was also to be expected. But he has left the longest-lasting legacy with City. He has spent 10 seasons in Manchester, taking charge of 550 games and counting. He has delivered the club's first Champions League, two FA Cups, four League Cups and won six Premier League titles, including a historic four-in-a-row and while achieving a record 100 points in 2017-18.

As he said himself, there could be no more fitting opponent than Liverpool to mark 1000 games as a coach. The Reds have been even more formidable rivals for Guardiola than Real Madrid or Borussia Dortmund at his previous two clubs, and it must have been hugely satisfying to not just mark the occasion with a win but with a truly crushing performance. 

Getty Images SportLOSER: Arne Slot

Just when he thought he was out of the woods after beating Aston Villa and Real Madrid following a run of six defeats in seven games, Slot was dragged right back into the thick, squelchy mud with this damaging defeat. It was not just the fact that his side lost that must have been hard to take, it was the way they lost. And in his typically frank way, Slot was only too happy to admit that his team had been outplayed, telling that "they were better than us" on no fewer than four occasions during his post-match interview.

He was not the only one to point out the massive gulf in quality between the two sides on the day. "I thought it was a really, really poor performance. It was one of the worst that I've seen from a Liverpool team for a long time," said Gary Neville. Roy Keane went even further: "There was a lack of intensity, a lack of energy. The subs, when they came on, looked really soft. It's okay to lose to a club like Man City – it's a tough place to come. But to lose seven in 10 – five league losses already – it has to be a crisis for a club like Liverpool."

It's now back to the drawing board for Slot, and he has two weeks to analyse what went wrong and come up with a plan to improve when his players return from the international break.