Barclays Premiership, Saturday April 14th 2007
Man City 0 Liverpool 0
Half-time: 0-0.
Man City: Isaksson, Onuoha, Dunne, Distin, Ball, Jihai, Vassell (Corradi, 82), Barton, Johnson, Beasley, Mpenza (Ireland, 62)
Unused subs: Weaver, Samaras, Trabelsi.
Booking: Barton 69.
Liverpool: Reina, Finnan, Agger, Carragher, Arbeloa, Pennant (Crouch, 75), Alonso, Mascherano (Zenden, 85), Riise (Gonzalez, 65), Gerrard, Kuyt.
Unused subs: Dudek, Hyypia.
Bookings: Alonso 62, Finnan 63.
Referee: Uriah Rennie (S Yorkshire).
Attendance: 45,883
Reaction:
Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez: "I'm disappointed with the result. We started the game well, we were moving the ball around and going forward and we had a number of clear chances. In football you need to take your chances and in the first half we had three or four. We dominated the possession in that first half but we needed to score a goal. Towards the end of the game we were under more pressure from long throws and free kicks but I don't think they made any clear opportunities.
"We were talking before the game about the need to win this match. Now we have one point more but one game less to play. If we'd won today and then won our next match we could have been talking about Champions League qualification.
"We knew it could be a difficult game because of the Champions League semi-final and trying to keep the players focused will be the key. I don't think the Chelsea game had anything to do with it today. We know people will be talking about those matches and if we'd started as we finished the game today then maybe you could say we were thinking about the semi-final, but, as I said, we started well and just needed to score."
Manchester City assistant manager Steve Wigley: "I thought we were very worthy of a point, and apart from the maybe the first 20 minutes we contained Liverpool quite well.
"We set the players targets five games ago because we wanted to finish as high as possible in the league and we said that beating teams like Newcastle and Middlesbrough meant we could finish above them. Games against the likes of Liverpool are the bonus balls, you really have to make sure you keep things rolling along, which we managed to do.
"Obviously we would have liked to have scored, but I thought the supporters stuck with us throughout the game and they have realised how hard we have worked over the last five games. Back then we were everybody's cannon fodder, the other clubs would have thought we'd be dragged into it, but all of a sudden we have a bit of space."
"Over the last five games the players have bought into everything we have asked them to do, they developed a bit of a siege mentality, to work our way out of this and do it together. They have done that and been fantastic, whoever has come in the team has worked really, really hard.
"There were 45,000 people here today, the second biggest crowd in the country, and I thought they were fantastic. They realised they were playing against a good side, with the hard work over the last five games we have got our just rewards and it's only a matter of time before the ball starts hitting the back of the net."