With Salah scoring Liverpool's fifth goal, the Liverpool fans who had traveled with the team to Manchester instantly erupted, their cheers like a mountain tsunami.
They knew.
Liverpool had won this match, nine times out of ten.
After this match, they would surpass Manchester City to take the top spot in the league table.
On the road to the Premier League title, they had taken the most important step.
In contrast, the Manchester City fans had gone completely silent.
Losing the match didn't necessarily mean they had lost the league title, but in the competition with Liverpool, they were now at a disadvantage.
The two sides only have two chances to face each other in the league each year.
The first time was at Anfield, where Manchester City had managed a 0:0 draw.
But back at the Etihad, they had lost 3 points to Liverpool.
They had lost this extremely crucial "6-point" battle.
Now, if they still wanted to win the title, they could only pray that Liverpool would make a mistake, while they themselves made none.
This psychological gap was difficult for the Manchester City fans to accept for a moment.
The curses aimed at the Liverpool players were overwhelming.
The main culprit of all this, Tendou, who hadn't even received any boos at the start, was now receiving special attention.
Of the more than 40,000 Manchester City fans, at least half were cursing Tendou.
2 goals, 2 assists.
These were Tendou's stats for this match. He had single-handedly created four goals.
He was the biggest hero in Liverpool's victory, more outstanding than Salah, Mané, or any other player.
Tendou couldn't care less and even did a "gunfight" celebration with Salah.
The Man City fans were not having it.
Trash, smoke bombs, and other things were thrown down from the stands.
Tendou just smiled even more brazenly.
The match restarted.
Manchester City, still unwilling to give up, launched a fierce attack.
However, although their offense looked fierce, the threat was much smaller.
Anxious and impatient, they had lost their earlier patience. Their crude passing could not penetrate Liverpool's defense.
Stoppage time was given as 6 minutes.
This match had many goals, a full 8 of them.
As a top-of-the-table clash, this match had dazzled the fans.
At the same time, it had made the "Happy Beans players" who had bet on the under beat their chests and stomp their feet, cursing that the first match was a goalless draw, while the second had 8 goals.
Match-fixing!
A setup by the capitalists!
The players who had lost their Happy Beans cursed the two teams for not being human. Those who had won, of course, opened champagne to celebrate, hailing it as a conscientious match.
TWEEET~
TWEEET~
TWEEET~
When stoppage time was up, the referee immediately blew the whistle.
Two short, one long. The full-time whistle blew.
The score was fixed at 3:5. Liverpool had taken 3 points from Manchester City away from home.
This match was full of twists and turns.
Liverpool first took a 2-goal lead away from home, then Manchester City launched a fierce comeback and scored 3 consecutive goals to take the lead. Then, a divine soldier descended for Liverpool. Tendou scored a brace to retake the lead and even sent a crucial assist in the end to kill the game.
The moment the match ended, the away fans' drums were deafening as they sang in the rain.
They waved their team flags and scarves, jumping and dancing.
Even people who had never met before, as long as they were wearing a Liverpool jersey, were treated as lifelong friends.
The Liverpool players were also elated.
For them, the most difficult hurdle had been passed. From now on, they just needed to advance steadily.
On the sidelines, the reporters' fingers were cramping from pressing the shutter, constantly capturing the scenes.
After the match, Prince proactively came to Tendou and took off his jersey.
"Can you give me a reason why you didn't choose Manchester City?" Prince was still bothered by the fact that Tendou had not chosen Manchester City.
What was so bad about his team compared to Liverpool?
A glorious history?
In this aspect, Manchester City was indeed inferior to Liverpool, but City was not that far behind.
"You have Kevin."
Manchester City has De Bruyne as their absolute core. This was the reason why Tendou had not chosen Manchester City.
In addition, Manchester City also had Prince and Agüero.
Although Tendou played as a full-field free man, he was not used to pulling wide and preferred to be active in the center.
And Manchester City had two top-class center forwards in Agüero and Prince.
"This reason, I accept," Prince said helplessly.
No one would give up the Belgian superstar for a 17-year-old kid.
Even for the current Tendou, Manchester City would not!
The midfield is a must-win battleground in modern football, and De Bruyne is considered one of the top two midfielders in the world.
Once Modrić gets old, De Bruyne will be the undisputed number one.
Tendou exchanged jerseys with Prince and they embraced forcefully.
"Steven, what do you want to say to your successor?"
On Sky Sports, the host had already become a fanatical fan of Tendou.
He enjoyed all of Tendou's performances on the field.
"I hope he can focus on the pitch. His future achievements are limitless."
Gerrard only had one thing to say to Tendou.
"As long as he is not tempted by the outside world, his future achievements will definitely surpass mine."
This was very high praise.
...
Post-match press conference.
Guardiola had lost the match and was naturally in a bad mood.
"...We are behind in the title race with Liverpool."
"Even though we have been in the lead for most of this season, the league is a marathon. I often tell my players not to relax until the very end."
"And today, Liverpool has made us understand this道理 deeply. Now we are the ones chasing."
"We will do our best to catch up and overtake them. The league is not over yet. The title does not yet belong to Liverpool."
This was clearly not what the reporters wanted to hear.
Someone immediately stood up and asked, "What are your thoughts on this loss? Do you think it was your tactical mistakes that led to the loss, or was it the players' mistakes on the field that led to the loss?"
This question was much sharper. The reporters had already perked up their ears.
As expected, Guardiola's anger rose.
"I know what you want to hear, but I'm telling you, our players did nothing wrong in this match. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to come from behind after being two goals down. I am proud of them."
"As for questioning my tactics? Could you have predicted why a perfectly fine match would suddenly start to rain? Why the damn weather forecast clearly reported that it would be sunny, but in the second half, I was standing on the sidelines, and the field was still a hazy mess?"
"I am a football coach, not a prophet or a wizard. All I know is that before it rained, my tactics had helped the team reverse the score."
Guardiola still superstitiously believed in that rain, thinking it was evidence of God's favor for Liverpool.
"So you think it was the rain that changed the result of the match?"
"I didn't say that, but the rain did cause us a lot of trouble. The speed of our ball circulation became slower because of the water on the grass."
"And TJ, he's great. He's a big-game player. Liverpool was at a loss for a while, but TJ stood up and changed the result with his goals and assists."
...
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