Man. City ‘needed’ to beat Liverpool to keep title race alive: Silva

Manchester City captain Bernardo Silva said anything other than victory at Liverpool would have meant that the Premier League title race was all but over after Pep Guardiola’s men snatched a dramatic 2-1 win at Anfield.

The visitors were set to fall nine points behind leaders Arsenal as they trailed to Dominik Szoboszlai’s stunning free-kick late on.

But Silva’s equaliser on 84 minutes sparked a crazy finale.

Erling Haaland put City in front three minutes into stoppage time but there was still more chaos and controversy to come.

Gianluigi Donnarumma produced an incredible save to deny Alexis Mac Allister an equaliser.

Rayan Cherki thought he had sealed victory by rolling into an empty net from the halfway line as Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker went forward chasing a leveller.

However, the goal was ruled out after Szoboszlai pulled Haaland back before the Norwegian retaliated in similar fashion.

Szoboszlai was instead shown a red card for committing the first offence.

“For the distance that we have to Arsenal, coming here it is the toughest place in the Premier League by far,” said Silva.

“I feel the whole team knew before the game, if we lost it then the title race was probably over. We felt like we needed to win.

“The hope is there and we are going to fight until the end. We need to keep doing our job that we haven’t lately.”

Victory is City’s first in front of a crowd away to Liverpool since 2003 as they completed a league double over the Reds for the first time since 1937.

“Very happy, but these points count as much as any in any other game,” added Silva.

“It has been frustrating the beginning of the year because we have not done our job properly. We could be closer to Arsenal.”