GRINNING FORMULA

The smiles are back on the Liverpool touchline as Reds rediscover their ruthless streak and deliver another big win in London

ONLY Liverpool could end up scoring from a West Ham corner.

They were in that sort of mood as they were back to their devastating best with two-goal Mo Salah in electric and match-winning form.

But two wonderful moments on the touchline also said just as much about how the mood has changed at Liverpool as, rather ominously, they are back up to third and just four points off leaders Manchester City.

Jurgen Klopp had a highly amusing exchange with James Milner after substituting him and then another revealing conversation with Xherdan Shaqiri after he was subbed.

Milner looked annoyed at being replaced for Curtis Jones, Klopp told him: “We have to do something

… so I put

Jones on to do a bit more.”

A minute later, Jones provided the assist for Salah to score the opening goal, Milner got back up, a huge smile on his face, and went over to celebrate with his manager as if to say: Yeah, you were right, boss.

Klopp (above, with Gini

Wijnaldum) also clearly wanted to make a point to Shaqiri when subbing him soon after he had provided the assist for Salah’s stunning breakaway goal.

Maybe it was to reinforce the point that some players in Liverpool’s squad do not play as often as they would like but are still an essential part of this winning machine. A machine which is well and truly back in the title race and you write them off at your peril because they have the ability to slice through teams and put a run together which will frighten Manchester United, City and the rest.

In this mood, they are still an awesome force and in

Salah they have a brilliant goalscorer, the first Liverpool man to score 20-plus goals in all competitions in four consecutive seasons since Ian Rush did it six years running from 1981 to 1987.

The smiles were back, the confidence has returned and, after two big wins in

London in four days – after beating Tottenham on Thursday – Liverpool are well and truly back.

They look a team reenergised, though they are still patched-up with Jordan Henderson playing in defence, Roberto Firmino was only fit to be a substitute and Sadio Mane was missing through injury.

But they got the job done and did it against an in-form West Ham team which makes it even more impressive. Their biggest obstacle was finding the breakthrough because the Hammers were so well organised.

The first goal came after 57 minutes with Liverpool toiling.

Jones replaced Milner, the Liverpool sub then supplied the final pass in a flowing cross-field move and there was Salah who cut inside, dummied Aaron Cresswell and then curled a lovely leftfoot shot into the far corner. The second came after 68 minutes. And it was electric. Jarrod Bowen took a West Ham corner, Andy Robertson headed clear at the near post, Trent Alexander-arnold’s diagonal ball found Shaqiri on the left and his perfect pass found Salah. With one touch, Salah killed the ball before slipp it past West Ham keeper Lukasz Fabianski to make it nine goals in eight games against the Hammers.

Wijnaldum got a third after another lovely move with Firmino providing the clever assist after fine play also involving Alexander-arnold and Alex Oxlade-chamberlain.

West Ham got one back after 87 minutes when Cresswell’s corner was bundled in by Craig Dawson but the game was long since over.