Manchester City 2-1 Liverpool: 5 things we learned

Skrtel is walking a tight rope

There was no doubt that Martin Skrtel was arguably the best defender on the pitch, but if the Slovak isn’t careful, he might not be on it, for very long. Although he put in a defensive display par excellence, throwing his body in the way of shots, intercepting balls and sliding into the tackle when it looked as though all hope was lost, he was still lucky to finish the game.

The Slovak has been getting in a nasty habit of grappling opponents during corners and not looking at the ball for one moment. In this game as well, for the opening goal, he was holding onto Kompany as if his life depended on it and was lucky that the Belgian scored or the centre back might well have conceded a penalty and received his marching orders.

Although he doesn’t always play like this, he has been consistently guilty of doing so and if he doesn’t curb it soon, it might well end up costing Liverpool an awful lot of points.