ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER — Manchester City host Liverpool in Sunday’s big Premier League match.
Pep Guardiola’s side suffered a demoralising UEFA Champions League exit at the hands of Real Madrid this week, and the focus now will be on ensuring they qualify for next season’s tournament, with their domestic title defence effectively over.
Liverpool are top of the standings and favourites to usurp City’s position as Premier League champions, but the Reds’ form has tailed off a little in 2025. The draw with Aston Villa on Wednesday was not a bad result in isolation, but it did give some hope to Arsenal in the title race.
The Sporting News is following the Man City vs. Liverpool match live, providing score updates and commentary
Latest live updates | Team news and lineups | Where to watch where you are
Man City vs. Liverpool score
| 1st Half | Goal scorers | |
| Man City | 0 | |
| Liverpool | 1 | Salah 14′ |
Venue: Etihad Stadium, Manchester (UK)
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Keep track of every game and every goal via SN’s live Premier League scoreboard
Lineups:
Man City (4-1-4-1, right to left): 31. Ederson (GK) — 82. Rico Lewis, 45. Abdukodir Khusanov, 6. Nathan Ake, 24. Josko Gvardiol — 14. Nico Gonzalez — 26. Savinho, 17. Kevin De Bruyne, 47. Phil Foden, 11. Jeremy Doku — 7. Omar Marmoush
Liverpool (4-3-3, right to left): 1. Alisson (GK) — 66. Trent Alexander-Arnold, 5. Ibrahima Konate, 4. Virgil van Dijk, 26. Andy Robertson — 38. Ryan Gravenberch, 8. Dominik Szoboszlai, 10. Alexis Mac Allister — 11. Mohamed Salah, 7. Luis Diaz, 17. Curtis Jones
MORE: Haaland, Salah and the race for the Premier League golden boot
Man City vs. Liverpool live updates, highlights, and commentary
22 mins: Loads of industry from Doku here, just lacking the end product. He wins another corner. Marmosuh’s delivery is woeful.
20 mins: Doku and Marmoush to get in down the Liverpool right but it doesn’t come off. Here’s Doku again with a ball for Foden that’s blocked at the near post.
18 mins: Liverpool turn over possession and Jones tries to play in Salah. It doesn’t work and Ake mops up but City can’t leave themselves in that position too many more times.
17 mins: Savinho gets Robertson. on the waltzers again. Diaz comes back to help and the Brazil winger runs out of pitch.
14 mins: GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!! Mohamed Salah!!!!!
Salah strikes again against City. It’s a corner routine straight from the training ground, with the ball drilled in low to Jones at the near post, who lays it back to Salah and the Egyptian superstar’s strike takes a deflection to fly past Ederson.
Available in the US
LIVERPOOL LEAD—AND OF COURSE IT’S MO SALAH.
Peacock | #MCILIV pic.twitter.com/mNzGuYCwtr
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) February 23, 2025
Available in the UK
Mo Salah is happy with that
Liverpool take the lead at the Etihad!
pic.twitter.com/KcJHuOzoAr
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 23, 2025
13 mins: Nice work from Szoboszlai and Diaz leads to the latter forcing Khusanov to clear out of the goalmouth and the prone Lewis heads behind for a Liverpool corner.
12 mins: Savinho darts in from the right and has Robertson scrambling. His prod towards Foden is cleared. This is going on at a furious pace and Salah is goal side of Ake, into the City box… excellent sliding tackle from Khasanov, who could not afford to get that wrong.
8 mins: Marmoush with a shot from way out on the left. Really gets hold of it but its blocked. Now Foden in a much better position on the edge of the box. Doesn’t get hold of it at all.
7 mins: Diaz twists and turns in front of Lewis… to the extent he falls over and City come away with the ball.
5 mins: Doku and Marmoush combine well down the Liverpool right. The latter’s ball into the box is scrambled clear but decent early signs for Guardiola’s men.
3 mins: Corner half-cleared, Marmoush retrieves it. His cross for Nico is deflected over by Van Dijk. Alisson claims Foden’s in-swinger.
2 mins: City with an early giveaway in their own half. Lewis blocks Szoboszlai’s shot. Decent response form the hosts as Konate clears De Bruyne’s low cross behind.
Kickoff: 1st Half
Liverpool get us underway and Salah is straight into this work forcing Gvardiol into a slide tackle.
4 mins before kickoff: Here come the teams to a rapturous reception. City fans with a couple of banners marking their achievement of winning four Premier League titles in a row. They won’t be making it five this time around and a win for Liverpool today will go a huge way to making sure they take the trophy off their hands.
10 mins before kickoff: Pretty much since David Silva rode off into the Manchester sunset in 2020, Pep Guardiola has been beset with questions over why he won’t play Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne in central midfield together. He’s done it on a very small handful of occasions, never in a game of this magnitude. It will be fascinating to see how they operate together. Will Foden operate deeper so City can use his ball-carrying skills to launch attacks or do we get to see some sort of Andrea Pirlo era in the works for De Bruyne. It’s probably neither of those, to be honest, but it could be fun to watch.
30 mins before kickoff: In Haaland’s absence, Omar Marmoush will provide City’s main goal threat. Given the presence of his international team-mate and global icon Mohamed Salah in the Liverpool lineup, it’s safe to assume this game is a pretty big deal in Egypt. Outside the ground a few months ago, Marmoush got the biggest cheer of players stepping off the City team bus. Fans are clearly keen to see him build on his hat-trick against Newcastle last weekend.
50 mins before kickoff: More by accident than design, we’re about to witness one of the legacies of this rivalry. There is no out-and-out centre-forward in either starting XI, with Darwin Nunez on the Liverpool bench and Erling Haaland out injured. Pep Guardiola is most heavily associated with false nine tactics, which of course were championed by his mentor and Arne Slot’s compatriot Johan Cruyff. Jurgen Klopp’s centre-forward of choice was master link man Roberto Firmino and the alternative ways each team found to rack up goals was truly captivating. There’s some irony that it’s now City who look most lost without a conventional No. 9, such is Haaland’s influence. They badly missed him in Madrid in midweek.
1 hr 10 mins before kickoff: And this is what things look like for the league leaders. We’ll assume Curtis Jones is going to supplement the front three on the left but Slot could always opt for an extra man in midfield to counter City’s possession-hogging tendencies. That said, he’d probably have been expecting more than one controlling midfielder in the City line-up.
Team news is IN
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 23, 2025
1 hr 15 mins before kickoff: Here are the teams. No Haaland once again for City and Guardiola appears to be trying to account for that shortfall with a far more attacking line-up than the one he put out in Madrid. Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku are each in from the start alongside Phil Foden, Savinho and Omar Marmoush. Rico Lewis returns at right-back, with Abukodir Khusanov shuffling over to centre-back alongside Nathan Ake. Ruben Dias only makes the bench.
Today’s team to face Liverpool! 🩵
XI | Ederson, Lewis, Khusanov, Ake, Gvardiol, Nico, De Bruyne (C), Savinho, Foden, Doku, Marmoush
SUBS | Ortega Moreno, Dias, Kovacic, Grealish, Gundogan, Bernardo, Reis, Nunes, McAtee#ManCity | @etihad pic.twitter.com/yLDMaa20ed
— Manchester City (@ManCity) February 23, 2025
1 hr 30 mins before kickoff: Although their head-to-head tussles during the Klopp-Guardiola era often came with the title on the line, City and Liverpool do have experience of playing one another in recent seasons with one in and one out of the title race. In April 2023, City came from a goal down without Erling Haaland — a predicament they might have to revisit today — to ransack a Reds’ team that failed to qualify for the Champions League. A Liverpool victory today would hurt City in that respect, while also being a huge step towards the title following Arsenal’s defeat to West Ham yesterday.
2 hours before kickoff: This might not be the meeting of two title contenders that we’ve come to expect, but Man City vs. Liverpool very rarely disappoints and this one could be a thriller.
Onto Sunday’s @PremierLeague encounter against Manchester City
pic.twitter.com/iQ8Yozfrp5
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 20, 2025
Man City vs. Liverpool kick off time
The match kicks off in Manchester, UK at 4:30 p.m. local time.
Here’s how that time translates across some of the major territories:
| Date | Kickoff time | |
| USA | Sun, Feb. 23 | 11:30 a.m. ET |
| Canada | Sun, Feb. 23 | 11:30 a.m. ET |
| UK | Sun, Feb. 23 | 4:30 p.m. GMT |
| Australia | Mon, Feb. 24 | 3:30 a.m. AEDT |
| India | Sun, Feb. 23 | 10:00 p.m. IST |
Man City vs. Liverpool lineups, team news
Pep Guardiola suffered another injury blow in Wednesday’s defeat to Real Madrid as John Stones was forced off in the first half. Stones has been nursing a foot issue for most of the year and this has been compounded by a thigh problem that might need surgery.
He joins Manuel Akanji, Oscar Bobb, and Rodri on the shelf, all of whom have missed signifiant time and will likely continue to do so. Bobb was scheduled to return from his broken leg but reportedly twisted his ankle in training, lengthening his return timeline.
Erling Haaland did not feature in the Real Madrid match midweek after tweaking his knee last weekend, and has not made the matchday squad. Rico Lewis, Nathan Ake, Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku come into the City XI.
Man City lineup (4-1-4-1, right to left): Ederson (GK) — Lewis, Khusanov, Ake, Gvardiol — Nico — Savinho, De Bruyne, Foden, Doku — Marmoush
Man City subs: Ortega (GK), Dias, Kovacic, Grealish, Gundogan, Silva, Reis, Nunes, McAtee
MORE: All the latest Man City news | 2024/25 Premier League top goal scorers list | Premier League schedule for 2024/25
Liverpool saw Conor Bradley go down with an injury late in the midweek draw with Aston Villa, after he had already come in off the bench. He’s almost out this weekend, but there’s very little news on what the prognosis is beyond the next match.
Trent Alexander-Arnold returns in place of the Northern Ireland youngster. At the other end of the field, Diogo Jota remains out and Cody Gakpo is only fit enough for a place on the bench, leaving midfielder Curtis Jones to complete a fluid front three.
Liverpool lineup (4-3-3, right to left): Alisson (GK) — Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson — Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, Mac Allister — Salah, Diaz, Jones
Liverpool subs: Kelleher (GK), Endo, Nunez, Chiesa, Gakpo, Elliott, Jota, Tsimikas, Quansah.
Man City vs. Liverpool live stream, TV channel
Here is how to watch the match in some of the world’s major regions:
| TV channel | Streaming | |
| USA | — | Peacock |
| Canada | — | Fubo Canada |
| UK | Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Premier League | Sky Go, Now TV |
| Australia | — | Optus Sport |
| India | — | Disney+ Hotstar, JioCinema |
