Liverpool 3 Leicester 1: Reds extend title lead as they fight back from 1-0 down through Gakpo, Jones and Salah
ARNE SLOT’S vision is crystal clear now – even if it did get a bit murky for a while tonight and not just because of the fog that blanketed Anfield.
For a first Premier League title in his first season as Liverpool manager is now on the horizon.
With a lead at the top extended to seven points, with a game in hand over second–placed Chelsea, it is for more than just a shimmering image in the distance.
Behind to Jordan Ayew’s shock early effort, they simply eased past the valiant but ultimately vain challenge offered by Ruud van Nistlerooy’s side.
Slot’s debut campaign in English football is only gaining speed, powered by an unbeaten run that now stretches to a stunning 22 games since his only defeat to Nottingham Forest on September 14.
Triumph, not even half a season after succeeding Jurgen Klopp in a job many feared might be impossible because of the huge space the German had vacated, is in his hands.
All he and his players, also, of course, top of the Champions League table have to do is stay steady, keep believing, and it will surely be theirs.
Although not for the first time this season their start to a game was anything but steady as Ayew produced a stunning opener.
Slot will fret in his quieter moments that for all his determination to make his defence a more dependable unit he still has work to do.
Yet going forward, Liverpool are becoming a juggernaut and have scored two or more goals in 13 of their last 14 games.
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Indeed they have also overtaken Tottenham as the Prem’s top scorers.
The fog created concerns that this clash might have to be called off and even ten minutes before kick-off Anfield was clothed in murk.
Yet within three minutes, Leicester were being dazzled by their opponent’s full–beam attack.
Polish goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk, making his Prem debut in place of Danny Ward, will have been wondering what hit him.
Ward, targeted by the club’s boo-boys in Sunday’s 3-0 humiliation against Wolves, didn’t even make the bench having also come on at half-time in the 4-0 defeat by Newcastle.
Yet dreams for the 24-year-old who spent the second half of last season on loan at Hartlepool cannot have been made of that panic stations start.
For he was a Fox stuck in the headlights as Slot’s men tried to walk the ball into the net before Salah’s stab hit a post.
But rather than lie down, Van Nistelrooy’s side, without injured icon Jamie Vardy, were ahead – maybe to their own amazement – three minutes later.
Left winger Stephy Mavididi went for it down the flank against Trent Alexander-Arnold and not for the first time this season the star under Real Madrid’s spotlight found himself beaten.
Mavididi steadied himself before squaring and Ayew then performed brilliantly.
As Andy Robertson moved tight to close down, the former Crystal Palace veteran produced a magical pirouette to then fire a perfect low shot passed the gob–smacked Alisson and inside his right–hand post.
Slot’s side may well have gone into the game believing their own publicity given how so many around them have been declaring that the title is theirs to lose.
But if they took it too easy in that first attack it did actually seem too easy for them as they continued to power forward.
Cody Gakpo got unfortunate with one shot, Salah saw his effort deflected only inches over the bar.
And in the 25th minute, Robertson stole into the box to connect with Alexis Mac Allister’s chip, his header hitting almost exactly the same spot that had denied his Egyptian team-mate.
Van Nistelrooy’s strugglers couldn’t keep riding their luck, however, although there was nothing fortunate at all about Gakpo’s equaliser.
It was simply down to sheer class.
Slot’s fellow countryman gathered the ball on the left flank, checked inside and then let fly with a tremendous, curling right–footer that Stolarczyk could only watch as it glided past him and into his top left-hand corner.
That goal came a few seconds before first-half injury time.
Four minutes after the break Slot’s men were celebrating again.
And once again there was something special about the way they cut their way through Leicester’s massed ranks before Salah slid the ball across the box and Curtis Jones was there to calmly flick over the line.
A VAR check for offside was needed to confirm the strike on what as the midfielder’s 100th Prem appearance but there was no question of how high–end that goal was from start to finish.
Leicester weren’t quite finished yet and Alisson dodged a bullet after an hour.
For had Patson Daka stayed calm he would surely have tucked away another clever pass from Mavididi but instead he mis–kicked a dozen yards out.
Having taken the hint Liverpool went back into high–energy attacking mode and Darwin Nunez – given a start to give No1 striker Diogo Jota a break – finally emerged from his own brain fog.
His strike from Salah’s cross looked perfect to be fair to the mercurial Uruguayan but Stolarczyk excelled himself with a heroic block.
Gakpo thought he had claimed a second after smashing a shot into the net only for a VAR check that seemed to take forever to cancel with Nunez minutely offside.
Yet the third was always going to come and almost always when a killer blow is required, it once more came from Salah.
He gathered the ball, moved forward in that usual quick fashion of his, then when Van Nistelrooy’s defence thought they were sorted to blight the danger, he simply used Victor Kristiansen as a wall to block his dart inside before curling another exquisite shot beyond a goalkeeper.