Jurgen Klopp Bemoans After Man City Trash Liverpool 4-1 In The Premier League.

Manchester City comes from a goal down to cruise to an emphatic victory against Liverpool in the Premier League's lunchtime kick-off as they maintained the pressure on leaders Arsenal.

City went into the game at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday without their prolific striker Erling Haaland who watched from the sidelines after the 22-year-old failed to recover from a groin injury.

The Norway international, who has scored 42 goals in all competitions this season, had to withdraw from his country's European Championship qualifiers against Spain and Georgia last week because of the problem.

Haaland currently leads the Premier League scoring charts with 28 goals and has hit nine in his last three games in all competitions.

World Cup winner Julian Alvarez started up front for the defending champions along with Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish. City was also without winger Phil Foden, who is recovering from appendix surgery.

Man City had won their previous two Premier League matches in which Erling Haaland did not start, although the last time that happened was in November against Fulham, and he came off the bench to score a late 2-1 winner.

Pep Guardiola side who were eight points behind Mikel Arteta's Gunners, albeit with a game in hand, they went behind in the first half when Diogo Jota set up of Mohamed Salah after a perfectly timed run in the 17th minute.

The goal made the Egyptian king Liverpool’s record scorer away from home in the Premier League. His 56th today, overtaking Michael Owen.

He has now scored four times against Man City in four separate matches this season.

City didn't feel the absence of Haaland, as Julian Alvarez put up an impressive contribution.

The Argentine equalised for City in the 27th minute. However, in the second half, Liverpool were totally awful, with the Cityzens scoring three more times, Kevin De Bruyne (46 mins), Ilkay Gundogan (53 mins), and Jack Grealish (74 mins) all on the scoresheet to make it a 4-1 result, and grabbed all three points.

The defeat for Liverpool sees them slump to their ninth league defeat of the season and missed the chance to close in on the top four

The Reds boss Jurgen Klopp bemoaned on his teams poor performance, but was grateful to escape east Manchester with just the three-goal deficit. 

Speaking after the game, Klopp said his side lost against the reigning champions City after conceding two quick-fire goals in the second half, adding that the Reds did not put in a challenge against the host.

“It was unlucky how the ball went through Robertson’s legs and they finished it off but coming out after half time and conceding two quick goals broke everything down... Klopp told BBC Sport.

“The goals, how we conceded is difficult to accept – we did not put in a challenge for either.

 “There is nothing good to say about this game, We had three or four one-on-one situations and we don't make a challenge and you saw what happened, we were not there, anyone, too passive, too open, too deep, too far away from anything.

He added, “That is absolutely not acceptable to be honest. City completely in control after that and we were open and they could do whatever they wanted, we were lucky they were not in a greedy mood.”

Next up for Liverpool will be another tough game as they travel to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea on Tuesday night.

City will play at Southampton next weekend before a mid-week match against Bayern Munich in the semifinals of the Champions League.