Manchester City stay five points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea after losing at Anfield on Sunday's lunchtime kick off. Chelsea though now have a game in hand over City after taking part in their victorious Capital One Cup Final. Philippe Coutinho scored the winning goal as Liverpool beat Manchester City 2-1.

This was an entertaining contest from the first whistle, with the hosts going close when Adam Lallana ran onto Coutinho's through-ball but could only shoot straight at Joe Hart.
Liverpool took the lead with their next attack in the 11th minute as Henderson received Raheem Sterling's pass before curling a fine shot from outside the box into the top-right corner. City looked to respond immediately, with David Silva's pass splitting the home defence and Sergio Aguero's shot coming back off the post.

City drew level on 26 minutes with a goal that owed a lot to Aguero’s trickery on the edge of the area as he found the unmarked Dzeko, who produced a composed finish beyond Simon Mignolet from 10 yards out.

Dzeko could have had a second soon afterwards, but his drive from the edge of the area went just over, while at the other end Lallana fired narrowly wide after a chipped pass from Lazar Markovic.

From then on the game became even more open with Aguero heading over 20 seconds into the second half and Sterling bundling wide a Lallana cross, but the quality level dropped somewhat.

With only a quarter of an hour left to play, Liverpool were on the attack, and when Sterling found Coutinho on the left hand side of the area, the Brazilian curled the ball into the top corner.

Photo: Action Images

Manchester City Polls