Phil Noble/Reuters
Álvaro Negredo, right, scored a goal in Manchester City's 2-1 victory against Liverpool at Etihad Stadium.
LONDON — Only in England is the day after Christmas such an inclusive day of sports. It might be cold out there, but racehorses pull in bumper crowds. Followers of cricket sit through the night, knowing that England faces a humiliating whitewash in Australia. And anywhere there is a soccer club, most seats in the house are sold because it is a time-honored tradition in Britain to fill Boxing Day with sports, like filling children’s stockings with gifts.
Sometimes it begets a feast of soccer.
On Thursday, Arsenal came from a goal behind at West Ham to win, 3-1. “Our backs to the wall,” Arsenal Manager Arsène Wenger said, “but we responded in a very convincing way.”
Still, the critics think Arsenal will not win the Premier League. Manchester City and Chelsea have amassed greater squads, with deep reserves that pay off over the holidays, when every team plays every second or third day, and clubs need fresh replacements to step in.
Manchester City demonstrated the point on Thursday night. City hosted Liverpool, which had started the day in first place. When Liverpool scored the opening goal, by the young Brazilian Philippe Coutinho, City was really facing a test.
Its captain, Vincent Kompany, stepped out of the defense, wrestled free of a bear hug applied by Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel, and headed in the equalizer. Heavyweights like Kompany and Skrtel think nothing of shirt pulling and arm wrestling, and referees seldom penalize their fouls, so this goal stood, and the ebb and flow of the match became enthralling. City’s coach, Manuel Pellegrini, had spoken of the necessary sacrifice of being alone in Europe while his wife and three adult sons spent their Christmas in Chile. It is hard, but right, Pellegrini reasoned, that he works in England while his family members pursue their careers, their schooling, their festivity on the other side of the world.
Right, but lonesome. In any case, it is Pellegrini’s duty, his extremely well-compensated duty, to oversee not simply the games, but also the training session that was necessary on Christmas Day. He is too educated a man to protest. He has one of the most expensive and diverse collections of individuals in soccer anywhere on earth. Not all of them are Christians, or even observe the meaning of Christmas. But all are brothers in terms of playing to win the games, to win the league, and to have a shot at winning the Champions League.
Liverpool’s manager, Brendan Rodgers, had suggested before this match that the Premier League title was “City’s to lose,” even though his team was atop the standings. He might have been engaging in gamesmanship, trying to take some heat off his side.
But it was not idle talk. Rodgers knows that his resources do not yet rival Pellegrini’s — or, for that matter, José Mourinho’s at Chelsea. Maybe, though, Rodgers forgot to mention that to his players, because for most of the match at City’s supposedly impregnable Etihad Stadium, Liverpool poured forward in wave after wave of attacks.
What, then, gave City its 2-1 victory?
First came a goal on the stroke of halftime that was sprung from the center line. Liverpool was caught high up the field, chasing a second goal of its own, and in three swift, supremely accurate passes, City perfected the counterattack.
The final pass, from Jesús Navas, split Liverpool’s defense and invited Navas’s Spanish teammate, Álvaro Negredo, to score. Negredo has now scored in nine successive games in this stadium.
It might have been Negredo’s least convincing strike this season, a shallow lob that barely cleared the Liverpool goalkeeper, Simon Mignolet. Mignolet attempted to save it with one hand, but it glanced off him and dropped embarrassingly over his line.
That error sealed the fate of the evening. Joe Hart, the English goalie restored by City after being left out for several gaffes of his own, made one superb stop on Coutinho and safely handled other shots.
Rodgers had complaints about the officials but added: “My overall feeling tonight is I’m very proud of our football. Proud of our passing, our understanding, our bravery, really, because to come here and play this well against a really good side that wins every game in this place shows we are progressing.”
Pellegrini could also say that he was pleased with his team’s response after it was a goal behind, and Kompany described the victory as the “hardest game we’ve had here so far.”
The Boxing Day results left four teams — Arsenal, City, Chelsea and suddenly fourth-place Liverpool — separated by only 3 points. Everton, Newcastle, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur are close enough to fear, and Pellegrini noted that “six teams have the same obligation, and the same possibilities, to win the Premier League.”
The weekend brings the next full schedule of games.
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