Manchester City 3-0 Liverpool: Haaland and Doku spell quality as Guardiola celebrates 1000th game with convincing home win

Manchester City advance to second place in the Premier League table thanks to yet another Erling Haaland goal, making it 19 goals in all competitions this season for the Norwegian (14 PL, 5 UCL).

Jeremy Doku was electric throughout his 74 minutes on the pitch, with 7 completed dribbles and 3 big chances created, topped off with a sumptuous curling strike from 25 yards out that nestled into the far corner past the outstretched Mamardashvili, earning him the Player of the Match award.

From start to finish, Manchester City were entirely dominant, flattening the already unconfident Liverpool, cutting Arsenal's advantage as league leaders to just four points going into this month's international break.

Erling Haaland had a penalty denied in the 13th minute by Giorgi Mamardashvili, who seemingly made up for his initial foul on Doku that conceded the penalty, only to see a flying Haaland header sail past him into the back of the net 15 minutes later.

Liverpool thought they had made it all square when Virgil Van Dijk clambered above the rest to head home from Mohammad Salah's corner, only to be denied - slightly unfairly as Liverpool fans on social media have claimed - by VAR due to Andy Robertson, who was deemed to be obstructing Gianluigi Donnarumma's view in an offside position.

Van Dijk was involved minutes later down the other end of the pitch, as a long-range effort from Nico Gonzalez deflected off the stray right boot of the Liverpool captain past Mamardashvili, making it 2-0 at the half time interval.

Liverpool seemed to pick up some second half momentum, with efforts from Cody Gakpo and Mo Salah coming close, but any lingering hopes of a comeback that the thousands of damp Liverpool fans in the away end had were quickly extinguished by the outstanding Doku just after the hour mark, as he skipped past Konate before aiming a perfectly bending shot into the far corner from outside the 18 yard box, making it 3-0 and very much game set and match.

Szoboszlai and Salah both had promising late opportunities to grab consolation goals, but the Hungarian's effort was parried away to safety by Donnarumma, and Salah's golden one-on-one chance sneaked just wide of the post. Chris Kavanagh blew his whistle to signal full-time, and the Etihad erupted in cheers.

As yet another international break halts Premier League football, Manchester City close in on Arsenal after their disappointing 2-2 draw to newly-promoted Sunderland on Saturday. Both City and Arsenal face challenging fixtures next game week, with Arsenal hosting rivals Tottenham in what will be - as always - a heated North London derby, and City travelling to St. James' Park which, as recent meetings have shown, has not been a venue were Pep's men have ever comfortably left with three points.