London (AFP)

Everyone was watching, some hoped, Liverpool's first league defeat this season and in 45 games came from the penultimate Watford, who corrected (3-0) pale Reds Saturday for the 28th Premier League day.

In the ranking, the impact of this setback is minimal. Manchester City is still 22 lengths, with 11 games to play for the "Sky Blue" who compete in the League Cup final against Aston Villa on Sunday.

But that didn't stop Gary Neville, a former Manchester United player and Liverpool's hated rival, from filming himself seconds after the final whistle opened a bottle of champagne on his Twitter account.

A reaction no doubt shared by supporters of Manchester City, which remains, thanks to this defeat, co-holder with the Reds of the record for consecutive league victories (18), which would have fallen if the Reds beat Watford.

Those of Arsenal are also relieved. Their "Invincibles" go down in history with their 49 undefeated matches between May 2003 and October 2004.

- Blunt reds -

Liverpool had not left the lawn in the shoes of the loser since January 3, 2019, and the opponent was the future champion, Manchester City, 2-1 winner.

But this defeat is not entirely surprising, as the very comfortable advance in the classification and the accumulation of matches had blunted the biting of Jürgen Klopp's men lately.

After warning shots and skirmish victories against the last Norwich (1-0) or West Ham (3-2), Monday, they fell on a team of Watford who knew how to wait for the right time to place their banners and winning three precious points which allow him to leave the red zone for the third time only this season.

The "Hornets" can thank their duo Abdoulaye Doucouré-Ismaïla Sarr who found the fault, the first recovering a ball in the area to serve the second who scored closely (1-0, 54th).

A few minutes later, the Senegalese striker accelerated to drop Virgil van Dijk after an opening in the back of Deeney, and poke his ball over Alisson (2-0, 60th).

Despite everything for all played by Klopp, Watford carried the knockout by his captain Deeney, in a red defense again hard pressed (3-0, 72nd).

Also beaten (1-0) by Atlético Madrid in the first leg of the knockout stages of the Champions League, of which he is the defending champion, Liverpool will have to quickly regain its splendor.

Perhaps as early as Tuesday in the round of 16 of the FA Cup, facing Chelsea in doubt.

- Chelsea patina -

Corrected at home by Bayern (3-0) Tuesday in the Champions League, the Blues were held in check by the poorly ranked Bournemouth (2-2) after leading the scoring.

With 6 points in 6 days, the fourth qualifying place for the C1 of the Londoners is weakened.

Manchester United at 4 points, Tottenham and Sheffield at 5 and even Wolverhampton at 6, will have the opportunity to get closer to them.

Still as fickle, the Blues can thank their left-back Marcos Alonso for opening the scoring (1-0, 34th), recovering a ball repelled by the transverse after a first attempt by Olivier Giroud, holder for the third consecutive times, and having equalized 5 minutes from the end.

But they completely missed the first quarter of an hour of the second act, conceding two goals by Jefferson Lerma (1-1, 54th) and Joshua King (2-1, 57th).

"We should have won (...) It's not for lack of trying but we have to score more," said Lampard after the match.

Asked about the success of Marcos Alonso who has scored three goals in the last two days, the former midfielder highlighted his "big week", "but I don't want my left-back to finish top scorer, I want that our attackers score and they didn't do it. "

© 2020 AFP