Salah shows there’s plenty of life left in Liverpool title tilt
Big wins for Liverpool and Arsenal felt even bigger after Manchester City lost ground in the race for the English Premier League title on Saturday.
Leader Liverpool won at Brentford 4-1 and Arsenal routed Burnley 5-0 before City was held 1-1 at home to Chelsea.
Liverpool and Arsenal have suffered the pain of going head-to-head with City for previous league crowns and know the importance of capitalizing on any misstep.
Liverpool twice missed out on the title to City by a single point in recent years, while Arsenal imploded at the end of last season.
Mo Salah is back from injury and back among the goals.
While the return of the talismanic striker was good news for Liverpool, beating Brentford came at a cost as the team’s injury concerns piled up.
Salah, back after a month out with a hamstring injury, scored the third of Liverpool’s goals.
First-half injuries to Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota, however, threaten to leave Jurgen Klopp’s squad further stretched in its four-pronged trophy pursuit.
“We have to see how much it costs us — we don’t know that yet,” Klopp said. “That Curtis cannot play on tells you that it must be something because he would have played on at all costs.
“Diogo looks probably the worst. I didn’t see it back, but I heard the pictures didn’t look great as well.”
Jota was taken from the field on a stretcher with an apparent knee issue, while Jones was hurt after being hit above his ankle.
Darwin Nunez was also taken off, but that appeared to be a precautionary measure.
Liverpool was already without goalkeeper Alisson Becker, who was hurt in training on Friday, as well as Trent Alexander-Arnold, Thiago Alcantara and Dominik Szoboszlai.
They are set to miss some regulars in the League Cup final against Chelsea this weekend.
Klopp’s team made light work of Brentford and raced 3-0 ahead through goals from Nunez, Alexis Mac Allister and Salah. Ivan Toney pulled one back for Brentford before substitute Cody Gakpo netted Liverpool’s fourth.
After hammering West Ham 6-0 the previous week, Arsenal produced another rout at Burnley’s expense. Bukayo Saka scored twice, while Martin Odegaard, Leandro Trossard and Kai Havertz were also on target in the 5-0 win.
It was a sixth straight victory for the Gunners and the third time in that sequence that they have scored five or more goals.
After a dip in form late last year, Arsenal has won five league games in a row and scored 21 goals in that sequence, conceding only two.
Manager Mikel Arteta was delighted with his players’ hunger as they refused to be sated by their recent dominance.
“Really happy with the performance, with the result and the individual and collective contribution of each player as well. That was very, very good,” he said.
“And the fact that the team looked like it wanted more. It wasn’t satisfied.
“They wanted to score more, they didn’t want to concede a goal. I’m really pleased to hit that consistency.”
Asked if Arsenal’s clear superiority over their recent opponents was even more pleasing than its goal spree, Arteta said: “Yeah. We want to dominate games and play in the opponent’s half as much as possible.
“I think the threat, the purpose, the activity and the connections of the players are flowing and they really want it. We have momentum now and we have to maintain it.”
Arteta acknowledged the rout in Lancashire was the ideal preparation for Arsenal’s return to Champions League action in the last 16 at Porto on Wednesday.
“Now we leave the Premier League, we go to Porto which will be a really tough environment, so just prepare to play well again and be ourselves,” he said.
The race for the top four is tightening.
While it looks like being a shootout between Liverpool, City and Arsenal for the title, the battle for Champions League qualification could also make tense viewing.
Aston Villa moved back up to fourth after winning 2-1 at Fulham, and Tottenham Hotspur lost 2-1 at home to Wolves.
Just two points separate Villa and Spurs, while Manchester United could boost its chances of a top-four finish by beating Luton on Sunday.
Sixth-placed United has won its last three in the league and could move to within three points of Tottenham with a win at Kenilworth Road.