Manchester City moved into second place in the Premiership table on Thursday as Alvaro Negredo's goal in first- half stoppage time was the difference in a 2-1 City victory over Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium. Philippe Coutinho's goal after 24 minutes handed Liverpool the lead, but Vincent Kompany equalized seven minutes later and Negredo scored on the stroke of halftime to lift City into second place, one point back of leaders Arsenal.

Liverpool drops to fourth place with the defeat, but the club still sits just three points from the summit. The home side came within inches of getting off to an ideal start when Aleksandar Kolarov's low cross in the fifth minute was headed against the post by Jesus Navas.

But it was Liverpool that worked its way into the lead in the 24th when a clever flick by Luis Suarez released Raheem Sterling into the penalty area, where he rounded goalkeeper Joe Hart before allowing Coutinho to fire the ball into the empty net from a slightly better angle.

City was behind for just seven minutes, however, and Kompany leveled things at 1-1 when he got on the other end of a driven corner kick from David Silva and redirected a header past goalkeeper Simon Mignolet after holding off defender Martin Skrtel. With the game approaching halftime the hosts seized the lead thanks to a lovely through ball from Navas, who split two defenders with his pass and put Negredo in on goal. Mignolet got a hand to the shot, but it had just enough power behind it to get over the goal line.

City tightened up its defense after halftime and was determined to see out the rest of the match, while Liverpool's best chance at an equalizer came in the 73rd when Suarez teed up Sterling with a low cross that the young winger fired over the net from eight yards.

The game finished 2-1 with all three points going to the home team.