Head to Head: Liverpool v Manchester City, 201 games of hoodoos, heartbreak and title races

For almost 40 years, Anfield was the place Manchester City came to suffer.

Between Boxing Day 1981 and February 2021 they won there just once.

Last February, Erling Haaland finally gave City’s travelling fans the Anfield win they had waited almost 23 years to see, and Liverpool supporters have not forgotten it. On Sunday at 4.30pm the two clubs meet for the 202nd time in competitive football, with Andoni Iraola and Enzo Maresca in the dugouts and, for the first time in more than a decade, no Pep Guardiola on the touchline.

The new men inherit a rivalry with plenty of history behind it. Here are the moments that shaped it.

Where it all began

The story starts at Hyde Road on 16 September 1893, in only Liverpool’s third Football League game. The opponents were Ardwick, and a crowd of 6,000 saw Jimmy Stott score late on to win it 1-0 for the Reds.

That was the start of a remarkable first season. Liverpool went through the 28-game Second Division campaign unbeaten, beating Ardwick 3-0 at Anfield in December along the way. A year later, Ardwick became Manchester City.

Paisley’s Boxing Day wake-up call

Liverpool’s greatest comebacks sometimes start with a defeat, and City provided one of the most famous. On 26 December 1981, City won 3-1 at Anfield, with a Kevin Bond penalty and a late Kevin Reeves goal either side of Ronnie Whelan’s reply.

It left Bob Paisley’s champions of Europe 12th in the First Division. Paisley acted quickly, taking the captaincy from Phil Thompson and handing it to Graeme Souness.

The response was ferocious. Liverpool won 20 of their last 25 league games, went to Maine Road in April and won 5-0, and finished the season as champions, four points clear of Ipswich.

Ten goals in four days

In October 1995, Roy Evans’ Liverpool met Alan Ball’s struggling City twice at Anfield in the space of four days. On the Wednesday, the Reds won a League Cup third-round tie 4-0, with John Scales, Robbie Fowler, Ian Rush and Steve Harkness on target.

On the Saturday, they did even better. Rush and Fowler scored two apiece, with Jamie Redknapp and Neil Ruddock adding the others, in a 6-0 win that is still Liverpool’s biggest over City.

Seven months later came one of the strangest afternoons in Premier League history. On the final day, at Maine Road, City needed a better result than relegation rivals Southampton and Coventry, and trailed 2-0 at half-time after a Steve Lomas own goal and a Rush strike.

Uwe Rosler’s penalty and a Kit Symons goal levelled it. Then, believing a draw would be enough, Ball told his players to run down the clock, and Lomas took the ball into the corner. It was Niall Quinn, already substituted, who sprinted down the touchline to tell them they needed another goal. By then it was too late, and City went down on goal difference.

The Anfield hoodoo

That Boxing Day win in 1981 turned out to be City’s last at Anfield for more than 21 years. When it finally came, on 3 May 2003, it had a familiar look about it. Kevin Keegan was the City manager, Robbie Fowler and Peter Schmeichel were in their side, and Nicolas Anelka scored twice, the second at the death, to cancel out Milan Baros’ opener and win it 2-1.

Then the door slammed shut again. It would be almost 18 years before City won there again.

‘This does not slip’

On 13 April 2014, two days before the 25th anniversary of Hillsborough, an emotional Anfield watched Brendan Rodgers’ title chasers take on Manuel Pellegrini’s City.

Raheem Sterling and Martin Skrtel put Liverpool 2-0 up at the break. David Silva and a Glen Johnson own goal levelled it, before Philippe Coutinho swept in the winner.

At the final whistle, Steven Gerrard gathered his team-mates into a huddle and told them: “This does not slip.” Sadly it did, and City took the title. But that afternoon remains one of the great Anfield occasions of the modern era.

Klopp v Guardiola

The rivalry reached its peak once Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola went head to head. In January 2018, City arrived at Anfield unbeaten in 22 league games. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain gave Liverpool the lead, and after Leroy Sane levelled, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah scored in a nine-minute spell to make it 4-1. Late goals from Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan made for a nervy finish, but City’s unbeaten season was over.

Three months later, the clubs met in the Champions League quarter-finals. Salah, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mane had Liverpool 3-0 up inside the first half-hour of the first leg at Anfield, on a night overshadowed by an attack on City’s team bus before kick-off. In the second leg, Gabriel Jesus scored early, Sane had a goal ruled out and Guardiola was sent to the stands, but Salah and Firmino scored to complete a 5-1 aggregate win.

City had their revenge in the title races. In January 2019, a Mane shot came back off the post and John Stones cleared it off the line by millimetres. City won 2-1, and it proved to be Liverpool’s only league defeat of the season. City took the title with 98 points to Liverpool’s 97.

In 2021-22 they pipped Liverpool by a point again, but the Reds won the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley along the way. Ibrahima Konate and Mane, with two, made it 3-0 by half-time, and although Jack Grealish and Bernardo Silva scored after the break, Klopp’s side held on to win 3-2.

By then the Anfield hoodoo had finally been broken. In February 2021, with the stadium empty because of Covid restrictions, City won 4-1, with Gundogan scoring twice and Sterling and Phil Foden adding the others. Two errors from Alisson helped them on their way.

City’s clean sweep

Liverpool won both league meetings on the way to the title in 2024-25, but last season belonged to City. They won 3-0 at the Etihad in November, despite Giorgi Mamardashvili saving a Haaland penalty.

In February at Anfield, Dominik Szoboszlai curled in a superb free-kick to put Liverpool ahead, only for Bernardo Silva to equalise and Haaland to win it with a stoppage-time penalty after Alisson brought down Matheus Nunes. Szoboszlai was then sent off in a chaotic finish. It was City’s first win at Anfield in front of fans since 2003, and it completed their first league double over Liverpool since 1936-37.

City then knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup with a 4-0 win at the Etihad in the quarter-finals in April, Haaland scoring a hat-trick and Antoine Semenyo getting the other.

Head to head in numbers

All competitive games: played 201, Liverpool won 95, drawn 53, City won 53 (penalty shoot-outs count as draws)
Goals: Liverpool 348, City 274
League: played 180, Liverpool won 85, drawn 47, City won 48
At Anfield: played 97, Liverpool won 57, drawn 24, City won 16
Premier League at Anfield: played 29, Liverpool won 18, drawn 8, City won 3
Biggest Liverpool win: 6-0 at Anfield, October 1995
Biggest City win: 6-0 at Maine Road, September 1935
First meeting: Ardwick 0-1 Liverpool, 16 September 1893

Over 133 years, Liverpool are well ahead. Recent history is a different story, and Iraola’s side have a point to prove on Sunday.