Saturday’s early live kick-off saw the meeting of two teams aiming to re-assert themselves in this season’s Premiership race, after recent runs of poor results have suggested a top four finish is all that both can both realistically aim for.

Liverpool, with one win in nine games, welcomed back Stevie G for a game his manager described as “make-or-break” against a Man City side who had drawn five consecutive league games prior to this one.

Here’s a look at some key pointers to the game:

Gerrard’s Not Anywhere Near Match Fit

Although the game picked up after an uninspiring first forty five minutes, the home side captain’s influence waned in the second half, as his clear lack of match fitness showed. As this chalkboard shows, all his shots came in the first half, and as this chalkboard, focusing on his passing shows, Gerrard’s mobility decreased considerably after the break, as he failed to forage forward in his own inimitable fashion.

City’s Strength in Depth

Starting with so many big-name players on the bench is only a sign of City’s impressive squad these days, and the introduction of Carlos Tevez for Gareth Barry on 61 mins not only brought about a change in formation, it gave the visitors fresh attacking impetus.
As this chalkboard shows, the little Argentine took the game to Liverpool, his passing, play, and positioning ensured City were in the ascendancy for the last third of the game, a fact backed up by this chalkboard; of City’s 9 shots on goal, 7 of them came after the introduction of Tevez to the proceedings.

City’s Dodgy Defending Continues

Having started the season with 3 consecutive clean sheets, Hughes’ team now seem utterly unable to defend properly at the moment. A recent clean sheet at Birmingham has been the club’s only league shut-out since away to Portsmouth in August, and their weekend performance shows why. In this chalkboard they won only just over half the tackles made, and were unsuccessful with clearances in and around the box an incredible 21 times- more than half of their attempts.

Rafa’s Unintentional Rotation

It’s perhaps ironic that Rafa’s ever-changing weekly team selection has everything to do with injuries, rather than his penchant for rotation. Liverpool’s bad luck continued at the weekend, with Glen Johnson being ruled out before the game, then Daniel Agger and Ryan Babel both enforced changes within 18 minutes. Some of those players available to Benitez are having to play in positions clearly not natural to them, as shown in Jamie Carragher’s distribution in this chalkboard, which compares his performance at right back to Insua at left back.

A two-all home draw against one of your nearest league rivals is usually never a result worth celebrating, but with all Liverpool’s woes, maybe in hindsight, Rafa can actually afford himself a sigh of relief. Mark Hughes, on the other hand, should be the more disappointed of the two managers, for if there was ever a chance to show that Man City were one of the real contenders, this, perhaps, was it.