Salah-inspired Liverpool beat Man City to open up 11-point Premier League lead
LIVERPOOL took a giant stride towards the English Premier League (EPL) title on Sunday (Feb 23) night as a 2-0 away win over rivals Manchester City opened up a massive 11-point lead over Arsenal at the top of the table.
Mohamed Salah was once again Liverpool’s star performer as he netted his 30th goal of the season before setting up Dominik Szoboszlai to double the lead before half-time.
“It is special. Especially when you are in the title race, it is incredible,” said Salah after Liverpool’s first league win at the Etihad Stadium for a decade. “Me and the big guys in the team, we need another title.”
Just days after Real Madrid sent Manchester City crashing out of the Champions League, this was another sobering defeat for the dethroned English champions, who are now 20 points adrift of Liverpool.
So often during Pep Guardiola’s glorious reign, Liverpool have come up just short in English football’s great rivalry of recent years.
However, their time to match Manchester United’s record of 20 English top-division championships now appears just months away in Arne Slot’s first season in charge.
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“We work every single day to achieve this and it is three months of very hard work (ahead) to maintain this,” said Slot. “It is important to understand why we are where we are.”
Arsenal’s shock 1-0 home defeat to West Ham on Saturday had eased the pressure on Liverpool, which had built up after dropping points in two of their last three games at Everton and Aston Villa.
A trip to the Etihad has for so long been the stiffest test of all, but Manchester City’s defensive frailties were easily exposed and they also badly missed the presence of the injured Erling Haaland in attack.
Liverpool, by contrast, had their talisman fit and firing as Salah took his staggering tally this season to 25 goals and 16 assists in 27 EPL appearances.
The Egyptian fired the visitors in front on 14 minutes thanks to a brilliantly executed set-piece routine.
Alexis Mac Allister’s corner was flicked by Szoboszlai into Salah’s path and his shot deflected off Nathan Ake past the despairing dive of Ederson.
At the other end, City’s own Egyptian international showed his ability to finish, but Omar Marmoush had strayed offside before being played in by Phil Foden.
City winger Jeremy Doku was skipping past Trent Alexander-Arnold at will, yet the Belgian consistently failed to deliver a telling cross or shot.
Salah was not so forgiving as he raced onto a long ball over the top and teed up Szoboszlai to wrong-foot Ederson.
The final outcome could have been much more humiliating for City had Liverpool had been as accurate on the counter-attack after the break.
Curtis Jones had a third goal ruled out by a VAR (video assistant referee) review for offside after Szoboszlai just failed to time his run through the heart of the City defence.
Goalkeeper Ederson was forced into a stunning save from Luis Diaz and only a brilliant last-ditch tackle from Abdukodir Khusanov denied Szoboszlai a second.
Marmoush scored a hat-trick in last weekend’s 4-0 win over Newcastle and remained a lively threat as he flashed another effort across the front of Alisson Becker’s goal.
But City lacked the end product to make their nearly 70 per cent possession count.
Despite an eighth league defeat of the season, Guardiola’s men remain in fourth spot and will be confident of securing their place in the Champions League next season with a top-five finish likely to be enough.
However, after an unprecedented run of four consecutive EPL titles, City look very much like yesterday’s team with Liverpool now the champions in waiting. AFP
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