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Liverpool 4 Manchester City 0
Liverpool finally beat Manchester City in their Coca-Cola Cup tie by the sort of margin their respective form in the Premiership suggested was possible.
Three late goals, including a first of the season for Ian Rush, obscured all memory of a central period of the game where City's loyal travelling fans sang "Blue Moon" as though they sensed a partial eclipse in the making.
Liverpool had taken a ninth-minute lead through John Scales, driving home from the edge of the area after Rush had headed down, and they could soon have been four ahead, so complete was their control.
Steve McManaman was running riot and Eike Immel had to produce excellent saves from him, Robbie Fowler and twice from Rush. John Foster, detailed to man-mark McManaman, was finding that task as difficult to perform as it is to say quickly, but City fought their way back into the game as Liverpool began to find it almost too easy.
Uwe Rosler and Niall Quinn both had reasonable chances and Quinn even had the ball in the net, but only long after the referee's whistle had sounded. Georgi Kinkladze occasionally broke off from his impressive repertoire of arm and hand signals to less skilful colleagues to show them how it was done, but City's period of territorial dominance yielded too few opportunities and no goals.
In a game of three well- defined phases, Liverpool's second burst of energy was the decisive period. They effectively made the tie safe when Rush, at his sharpest last night, slid the ball through perfectly for Fowler to drive home. Four minutes later, Jamie Redknapp's cross gave Rush the chance to rise majestically to end his drought.
Within three minutes of that, Steve Harkness had one shot blocked by a wall of defenders, but fired home his second chance on the rebound.
The worst aspect of the evening for City was not that they went out of the Coca-Cola Cup - in their current position in the Premiership, it looks like an unwelcome distraction - or the fact they collapsed late in the game. It is that they must return to Anfield in desperate need of points on Saturday. If Liverpool start and finish in the mood they were in last night, it is hard to see their quest being rewarded.
Liverpool (3-5-2): James; Wright, Scales, Babb; McAteer, McManaman, Redknapp (Ruddock, 82), Barnes, Harkness; Fowler (Collymore, 82), Rush. Substitute not used: Warner (gk).
Manchester City (3-1-4-2): Immel; Symons, Curle, Edgehill; Foster; Summerbee, Lomas, Kinkladze, Brightwell; Quinn, Rosler (Brown, 89). Substitutes not used: Kernaghan, Margetson (gk).
Referee: S Lodge (Barnsley).
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