Liverpool 2 - 2 Manchester City

Martin Skrtel's powerful header (centre) opens the scoring

Skrtel slips up and awards Manchester City a point after a heart pumping match.

It was a good and bad day for Liverpool defender, Martin Skrtel. The opening goal of the match came from Skrtel after 34 minutes. A well taken corner from Liverpool skipper, Steven Gerrard, was headed like a bullet from Skrtel as the ball was placed into the centre of the goal.

It took over 28 minutes for the Premier League champions to put themselves back level. A cross in from Carlos Tevez on the right wing bounced off Liverpool's right back, Martin Kelly, which gave access for Yaya Toure to poke in the equaliser from close range.

A couple of minutes later, Liverpool respond quickly. Gerrard had an effort at goal from outside Manchester City's box which got blocked halfway by City's new midfielder, Jack Rodwell. Rodwell's arm was in the way of Gerrard's shot. Liverpool were given a free kick from just a few yards outside the penalty area. Luis Suarez curled the free kick past the wall and into the bottom right corner of the goal. Suarez put Liverpool back in front.

I guess you could say it was a bad debut for Jack Rodwell conceding the free kick which was scored.

With just ten minutes left on the clock Liverpool were holding on to the lead. Skrtel had the possession outside his own box and tries to do a backpass to Liverpool's goalkeeper, Pepe Reina, but ended up passing the ball to the wrong man, as Tevez succeeded past Reina and taped in City's equaliser. Skrtel had no where to hide for the rest of the match. A bad and good day for Skrtel.

Carlos Tevez (left) celebrating his equaliser

In the opening minutes of the match Liverpool and Brazillian midfielder, Lucas had to be substituted off due to an injury. Jonjo Shelvey came on to replace Lucas. Lucas has only just came back from a long term injury and had to miss the most of last season.

Back on Thursday night in the Europa League we saw young Raheem Sterling perform very well for Liverpool in Edinburgh against Hearts, he did not disappoint in today's match. Sterling did a fine delivery from the left wing to find Fabio Borini (who joined Liverpool from AS Roma in July) in the box, but Borini poked the ball wide past the left post. Sterling could become a top player at Liverpool in months to come.

Tevez nearly scored the opening goal of the match in the 19th minute. Tevez was at a very tight angle on the right hand side of the goal kick line, Tevez kicked the ball past Reina and hit the inside left post but was comfortably picked up by Reina.

After so many rumours of Andy Carroll going to West Ham United on loan for the season, Carroll came on for Borini with 6 minutes to go until the final whistle. Carroll had a very good opportunity in the 88th minute, Suarez crossed the ball to where Carroll was just outside the 6 yard box. Carroll headed the ball on target but was headed cleared by Manchester City skipper, Vincent Kompany.

Manchester City goalkeeper, Joe Hart took the goal kick as the referee, Andre Marriner whistled for fulltime.

Liverpool deserved the three points more than the champions today. Liverpool probably played their best performance for the first time for quite a long time. Brendan Rodgers will feel like he has already started improving his squad since becoming the manager back in June. Roberto Mancini should recognise that his team got a draw because of two lucky goals, Toure scoring because of a rebound of Kelly and Tevez scoring because of a poor backpass by Skrtel.

Liverpool's next match is the Europa League second leg qualifier clash with Hearts on Thursday night at Anfield and Manchester City's next fixture is at home to QPR on Saturday evening. Of course the last time Manchester City played QPR at the Etihad was a memorable day for the noisy neighbours.

Match report by Jamie Davies

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