Liverpool 2-2 Manchester City
A sixth consecutive draw was the last thing Manchester City wanted, though Mark Hughes did concede beforehand that you could never regard sharing the points at Anfield as a poor result.
That was before he knew City would be 2-1 up with just 12 minutes remaining. By conceding an equaliser barely a minute after taking the lead, City showed their inexperience – otherwise, they have every reason to be happier with the result than the home side.
The first half was unbelievably uneventful, notable only for a couple of early injuries to Liverpool players and a consequent six minutes of stoppage time that no one really wanted.
An entertaining game appeared in prospect when Shay Given had to fly to his left to keep out Martin Skrtel’s header from a free-kick in the fifth minute, yet that was pretty much the excitement over for the first half.
Daniel Agger had suffered a facial injury in a clash of heads with Kolo Touré and had to be replaced by Sotirios Kyrgiakos, then Yossi Benayoun came off the bench after Ryan Babel was unable to shake off the effects of a two-footed tackle by Nigel de Jong.
Shaun Wright-Phillips wasted a decent chance for City from the edge of the area, Steven Gerrard shot over at the other end and David Ngog was not quite slick enough to take advantage of a wonderful pass from Javier Mascherano.
Mercifully, the game livened up in the second half, when Liverpool took the lead.
City brought everyone back to defend a Gerrard free-kick on the left and it fell to Emmanuel Adebayor to deal with a cross dinked in to the near post. He couldn’t manage it and Skrtel was able to stretch out a leg in front of him to deflect the ball past Given for his first goal for Liverpool.
The defender’s joy was short-lived, however, because, 20 minutes from the end, he conceded the corner from which City equalised and then failed to pick up Adebayor from Craig Bellamy’s cross, allowing the former Arsenal striker to score with a virtually free header from close to the penalty spot.
City looked to have sewn up the points when Carlos Tevez and Wright-Phillips combined cleverly to enable Stephen Ireland to score from close range, seven minutes later.
But they were pegged back almost immediately when Ngog’s cross deflected off Joleon Lescott to leave Benayoun with a simple tap-in.
