Van Dijk doubles up as Reds re-ignite in five-star show
Virgil van Dijk celebrates after scoring the first of his two goals with Georginio Wijnaldum during Liverpool’s 5-0 victory over Watford at Anfield last night –
WHEREVER Liverpool’s season takes them, to the Premier League, or the most painful second place in their modern history, there will at least be the memory of nights like this when they played with the joy of a team that looked like they felt no pressure at all.
Goals like Sadio Mane’s brilliant backheeled second will be no consolation if they do deliver a blank in this, their 29th quest for a title since the last one, but at least they look like a team that will go all the way, and are breaking opposition in formidable style.
They were magnificent in the first half and yet it was only in the last 10 minutes that Watford collapsed, gradually worn away by the pressure and the speed at which Liverpool came.
In those final stages, it felt like Jurgen Klopp’s team were throwing shadow punches and flexing muscles in readiness for Sunday’s derby at Goodison, the 10th game from the end of this momentous season that finds them still leading the pack by one point.
They have come through a period of just one win from four games with five goals, the last two delivered by their inspirational captain Virgil van Dijk.
Twice in the last 10 minutes he headed past Ben Foster, his side’s best player and the man who had done much to hold the home side at bay in a first half when Mohamed Salah twisted the blood of Watford’s Italian full-back Adam Masina.
It became an open game after the break with Watford having nothing to lose but that first half laid the foundations for it, a commitment to attack from Liverpool that was risky and ambitious and always seemed destined to bear fruit.
The confidence that has taken Liverpool into March at the head of the title race, all that pre-Christmas flair that seemed to come so easily, was back in the first half and it was a wonder that Watford were still in the game come half-time.
This was the sort of stuff that calms a crowd at Anfield, safe in the knowledge that their team are capable of running the game whatever the opposition try to do.
It was the relentlessness of Liverpool that looked like it might break them, and while Mane scored the two goals, Salah was operating like a man at the top of his game.
Marvellous
His absorption in the quest for a goal of his own was complete and along the way he delivered some marvellous moments.
In those early stages, Alisson opted to go long and it was his accuracy that caused the away side to lose confidence.
They could not match up with Liverpool around the pitch; they struggled badly down their own left side where Trent Alexander-Arnold’s crossing was always a problem and created the second goal for Mane.
Mane tries most of the time to find Salah, even when he should go his own way. In the absence of the injured Roberto Firmino, Mane was in the central striking role with Divock Origi on the left wing.
Mane had already tried to work an opening on nine minutes when the ball was recycled to Salah on the right.
He crossed for Mane to slip in between two defenders, as he did against Bournemouth earlier in the month, and head past Ben Foster.
In midfield, Fabinho, playing instead of Jordan Henderson, was an influential figure who moved the ball as well as anyone in the home side.
He looks like he could be hard to shift if the Liverpool captain finds himself out of the team for a run of games.
But it was the second goal that they gasped at in Anfield. A ball whipped in from the right by Alexander-Arnold and Mane springing the offside trap to reach the cross in an impossible amount of space.
His first touch was a disappointment taking him away from goal. But what came next was the natural confidence of a striker, with his back to goal, who knew exactly where goalkeeper and goal were.
With a little hop, Mane dug the ball down into the ground with his heel and it skipped up past Foster who would have saved anything along the ground.
Origi’s goal 20 minutes into the second half took all the pressure off and both Van Dijk’s goals came late, the first headed in from another Alexander-Arnold cross, the second supplied by Andy Robertson.
Both full-backs had been superb. By the end of the game the away side were still on the back foot as the home crowd relaxed, although there will little chance for that before the end of the season. (© Daily Telegraph, London)