Premier League Hangover: Klopp Revolution, Saluting Vardy, Man United March On

In 1971, the American poet, musician and author Gil Scott-Heron released his magnum opus "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Some 44 years later, on a cold November night in Manchester, an event was being played out that not so much challenged the sentiment but rendered it obsolete.

It was not just those inside the Etihad Stadium who bore witness to a revolution in red as Liverpool tore Manchester City apart in their own backyard.

This is the type of Premier League fixture that shrinks the world, tying together disparate languages and cultures via a rectangle box in the corner of the room. Beamed into living rooms across the globe were pictures of the most impressive team performance of the season so far.

Transmissions of Liverpool's 4-1 demolition of the title favourites will have spread even wider than the grin that encompassed Jurgen Klopp's face at full-time.

Brendan Rodgers' possession-based mantra at Liverpool was death by football. In the first half, Liverpool had just 37.4 per cent of the ball. They scored three goals and could have had six. Forget evolution—for 32 minutes, this was a bona fide brutally brilliant football revolution.

Not bad for six weeks' work on Klopp's part.

First though, to give context, the elephant needs to be lured from the room. On the night, Manchester City were not so much bad, but in the words of their own manager, Manuel Pellegrini, "a disaster." Had the Chilean sunk any deeper into his seat in the dugout over the course of the 90 minutes, an archaeologist and a digger would have been required to excavate him.

This was City's heaviest home defeat since leaving Maine Road—their worst loss in 12 years. Owner Sheikh Mansour has grown accustomed to seeing about as many losses for his football club as when reviewing his annual accounts.

Pellegrini's diagnosis of an evening of horror was refreshingly candid, yet at the same time, it seemed somewhat remiss to point-blankly refuse to implicate himself in what went wrong, as he did in his post-match press conference, as per the Guardian:

"

It was a disaster. I will not explain the starting XI. If I had to choose the same starting XI, I would.

We didn't create chances. We conceded four goals. We could have conceded three or four more.

I'm more than angry. It was unbelievable the performance. Defending, attacking, possession, I have never seen this team play in the way we did tonight.

"

Pellegrini may not recall having seen his side emphatically outplayed by a younger and more energetic team, but the rest of us can. Cast the mind back to September, and it was Tottenham Hotspur's turn to make City look like the father of the bride on a stag do—punch drunk and out of place.

A refusal to deviate from an "attack, attack, attack" game plan may have supporters from across the city daydreaming forlornly of halcyon days now vanquished, and from a neutral and aesthetic perspective, it's an approach easy to champion, but has a gung-ho attitude become too easy for other top clubs to neutralize?

In the calendar year, Liverpool's double over City adds to defeats Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Juventus have all inflicted on a side in danger of being perceived as flat-track bullies.

Were Fernando and Yaya Toure ever realistically going to cope against a Liverpool side that packed their midfield? Is a central-defensive pairing of Eliaquim Mangala and Martin Demichelis the partnership best equipped to blunt a fluid front three that saw Klopp sacrifice a traditional centre-forward to accommodate Roberto Firmino as a false nine?

Pellegrini may protest to the contrary, but he was outthought as much as his players were outfought. That City lost a battle before the first shrill of referee Jonathan Moss' whistle is of little dispute.

To focus on City's inadequacies though would be to see the Beatles in concert and complain about the quality of the burger consumed beforehand. Saturday was about Klopp and Liverpool.

Joe Hart lost in the Champions League to Klopp's Borussia Dortmund side in 2012, and he referred to the Germans as being like wasps, such was the manner in which they would swarm in packs when pressing. Wasps are irritants that can be squatted away.

On Saturday, Liverpool hunted City's weakest links en masse with a cold cohesiveness that felt more like a pack of hyenas circling and then mauling a lion. When one player hunted possession, the rest would follow. It may have looked intuitive, but this was gegenpressing stage-managed to a tee.

Liverpool's opening goal was a perfect example of Klopp's philosophy in full working order. It could only have been topped had David Attenborough been on commentary duty.

When Bacary Sagna received possession from Hart, it was the trigger for Philippe Coutinho to attack. The diminutive Brazilian, with his manager bellowing instructions from the sidelines, showed a pugnacious appetite to first close the space and then steal possession.

Firmino's thinking was in tandem with his compatriot's as he made a dart forward in anticipation of Liverpool's turning the ball over. Mangala, unsure over whether to stick or twist with his position, did neither, and when Firminho's cross duly arrived, he was disoriented to the point he could do nothing but clumsily side-foot past his own goalkeeper.

Thereafter, the Frenchman was given the type of runaround last endured by Tom at the paws of Jerry. Had Coutinho celebrated Liverpool's second goal that concluded an exhilarating counter-attack by pulling a frying pan from his shorts to slap it around the chops of Mangala, it would not have been out of keeping with a night of high-farce defending from City.

On the touchline, Pellegrini was inert to the point finding a pulse may have been a challenge. Klopp looked as though combustion was a genuine possibility. Never has the demeanour of two rival managers so accurately reflected the performances of their respective sides.

Time and time again, Liverpool would drop back as a unit to create a defensive stronghold and draw breath. And then, when the opportunity arose, they would carefully snap into action by pressing the ball in twos and threes. No exertion was wasted—everything was coordinated.

To press in a chaotic fashion is to be physically shot before half-time—unless you're James Milner and do bleep tests to wind down. This wasn't players pressing high to curry favour with supporters but rather planned raids of military precision.

By the time 32 minutes had elapsed, Liverpool had a third, and again it owed much to a rapid counter-attack. When Emre Can hoodwinked City's back line with a backheel, after Hart had beaten away a Coutinho potshot from range, it was Liverpool's beguiling No. 10 who was able to return the favour to Firmino with an assist that allowed his team-mate to walk the ball into the net.

Just as they had combined to run amok in Liverpool's last away game at Chelsea, the pair gave a little samba style to complement German engineering at its most efficient. Liverpool have won all four games Firmino has started under Klopp after winning just one of the same number Rodgers granted him. That he repeatedly won possession while being Liverpool's most advanced player underlines just how much he has bought into his new manager's philosophy.

Sergio Aguero reminded his fellow South Americans they still have a bit to do to reach his level when a fine curling effort reduced the deficit just before half-time. An 85th goal takes him above fellow Argentinian Carlos Tevez as the top-scoring South American in Premier League history.

It would prove scant consolation; Liverpool's ascent continued in the second period as they never deviated from their game plan. Were it not for Hart, which to Pellegrini's credit he was willing to attest, Martin Skrtel's rasping effort on the bounce from a corner would not have been the only other Liverpool effort to trouble the scoresheet.

The revolution was televised.

10 out of 10 for Vardy

Scott Heppell/Associated Press/Associated Press

By the very nature of their definitions, can something be odd and expected? While it seems a little odd a striker who was playing for Stocksbridge Park Steels five years ago has become just the second player in Premier League history to score in 10 consecutive matches, few would have expected anything less than Jamie Vardy to have extended his run against Newcastle United.

In what has been the most remarkable story in the most remarkable of seasons, Leicester City's most unassuming of No. 9s has now equalled the record of former Manchester United man Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Vardy, who punctured Newcastle's admittedly tepid resistance with a smart daisy-cutter on the stroke of half-time, can now make the record his own when United visit the King Power Stadium on Saturday. Newcastle's supporters met Vardy's goal with a gracious round of applause before booing off their side minutes later.

At this stage of the season last term, the Foxes were holding up the rest of the division. They go into the game against United as the Premier League leaders, and deservedly so. Vardy plays each game as if it may well be his last, and having worked his way up football's notoriously difficult-to-scale pyramid, the 28-year-old's enthusiasm has set a standard that has proved infectious.

"He spoke in the dressing room afterward and said thank you to everybody," revealed his manager, Claudio Ranieri, via the Independent.

"He is good for the team. ... It's not easy equalising a big champion."

Good Enough, Good Enough for Manchester United?

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It's a measure of modern football's obsession with aesthetics that Manchester United are a point off the Premier League summit and practically no one has spoken of them as potential title-winners.

If a group of non-football fans were presented with an accumulative ream of the column inches dedicated to Louis van Gaal's side this season and asked to guess where they are in the table, how many would say second? Second from bottom perhaps if they paid particular attention to Paul Scholes' musings.

Yet the man who matters most in Manchester could not be happier exalting his satisfaction over how his processes and philosophies are slowly being implemented by his side. Van Gaal was positively ecstatic with the character his players showed in going on to win Saturday's lunchtime kick-off at Watford. In claiming the spoils, United made light of conceding an 87th-minute leveller, when Troy Deeney's penalty broke a 641-minute run without conceding a goal.

On a superficial viewing the current United side shares perhaps only the shirt colour with those who preceded them at Old Trafford, but scratch further below the surface and an indefatigable spirit still burns bright.

While it wasn't quite Brian Kidd celebrating Steve Bruce's 96th-minute winner against Sheffield Wednesday back in 1993, the sight of World Cup winner, Champions League winner and eight-time Bundesliga winner Bastian Schweinsteiger engaging in similar antics when his cross-cum-shot hit Deeney to earn United the win at Vicarage Road suggests something may just be brewing in Manchester.

This might not be the best Manchester United side in recent years, but winning habits can mask a multitude of sins. They could go further than a lot of people think they will this season. It's not as though they'll be afraid to spend in January, either.

It's All Getting a Bit Interesting at Everton

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It's hard to disagree with Roberto Martinez's positively giddy assessment of the current crop of young players he's got at his disposal after Everton's 4-0 defeat of a wretched Aston Villa side on Saturday. Martinez said, as per the Guardian:

"

To have that as a team is quite unique. ... John Stones is a modern centre-half. He is as good as it gets at that age.

We have all seen the combination of incredible physical and technical attributes that Ross Barkley has. Romelu Lukaku has scored 51 Premier League goals before 23. Gerard Deulofeu was a young man with incredible potential and now he is a complete performer. ...

Ross has gone to another level. Remember the young man we had three years ago: now he is a different player, a different footballer.

"

John Stones is regularly immaculate for club and country to the extent a reported £45 million price tag is starting to feel about right as opposed to spit-your-tea-out ludicrous, as it was when it was mooted in the summer to fend off Chelsea when they were flashing their knickers every time they descended on Merseyside.

If you can't admire a ball-playing centre-half striding out from the back before pinging a pass, it's time to book yourself into a clinic.

At 21, it looks as though Stones has indeed got the lot. And when you add into the mix the fact Gerard Deulofeu and Ross Barkley are the same age and Romelu Lukaku is just a year their senior, if (and it's going to have to be the mother of all ifs if it's going to fend off Roman Abramovich's chequebook) Everton can keep this side together, the Champions League shouldn't be beyond them in the next year or two.

Seven of Everton's XI that started on Saturday are 25 or under (Seamus Coleman is 27), with only Tim Howard, Gareth Barry and Arouna Kone over 30.

The View from North London Part I

The View from North London Part II