Man City punish 10-man Liverpool with second-half masterclass 

The home crowd made their feelings known throughout a strange encounter on Merseyside.

Manchester City's Erling Haaland celebrates scoring their side's first goal of the game at Anfield.

Liverpool 0 Manchester City 3 

This is one outcome that Manchester City will not be appealing.

If it is to be their last league visit to Anfield for the foreseeable, and who knows what the future holds given the unchartered territory of the past few weeks, they signed off in style.

Back-to-back City victories in front of the Kop are rare - this was their first in 73 years as they showed few ill-effects of the weight of the charges hanging over them for systematic financial doping for the best part of a decade.

A red card for Ryan Gravenberch midway through the second-half as the hosts enjoyed their most potent spell was the catalyst for a winning return to action for the Premier League leaders, who maintained their perfect start to the campaign with a victory which was as comprehensive as it was no doubt satisfying.

The three points they earned may still potentially come with an asterisk pending their appeal, but they were fully merited nonetheless.

City scored twice within six minutes of Gravenberch earning a second yellow card for a nothing challenge on substitute Jeremy Doku which was as innocuous as the Dutch midfielder's first caution. The sudden and traumatic loss of their best player was a blow from which ANdoni Iraola's side failed to recover as the visitors ruthlessly exploited their numerical advantage.

Erling Haaland launched the second-half exhibition, reacting quicker than his marker Virgil van Dijk to fire home left-footed from a dozen yards after a deflected shot from Doku fell invitingly for the Norwegian to claim his sixth goal in the last four appearances against these opponents.

With Liverpool still coming to terms that there was simply no way back, the second came three minutes later, Doku given time and space to cut in from the left and curl a sumptuous finish into the top corner from the edge of the area.

Rayan Cherki underlined the gulf between the sides on the day by adding a third 12 minutes from time to put the cap on a first home league defeat in eight months for the Reds.

The outstanding Frenchman rouinded-off a seemingly never-ending move lasting the best part of two minutes where every City player touched the ball before the will-o-the-wisp midfielder left Jeremie Frimpong on his backside with a deft drag back inside the six-yard area as he calmly slotted the ball beneath Alisson.

The celebrations in the adjacent away end behind the goal were long and memorable for the travelling City faithful, which included Haaland's dad Alf-Inge and Noel Gallagher - both wisely keeping their distance from the club's sombre-looking executives in the directors' box. What's the story? Tainted glory? Watch this space.

******* 

Liverpool (4-2-3-1): Alisson 6: Araujo 6 (Frimpong 75, 3), Jacquet 6 (Gomez 88, 6), van Dijk 5, Kerkez 5; Gravenberch 5, MacAllister 6; Munoz 7, Wirtz 3 (Nyoni 66, 5), Barcola 3 (Chiesa 88, 6); Koumas 6 (Ngumoha 75, 4). Sent off: Gravenberch. Booked: Araujo, van Dijk.

Manchester City (4-2-3-1): Donnarumma 7; Nunes 7, Dias 7, Guehi 7, O'Reilly 6 (Gvardiol 66, 7); Fernandez 6 (Bouaddi 80, 6), Anderson 9; Ndiaye 5 (Doku 56, 8), Cherki 8, Semenyo 7; Haaland 8. (Allan 80, 6). Booked: O'Reilly, Bouaddi.

Referee: Chris Kavanagh