Liverpool 5 Roma 2 Salah fires Klopp’s men to brink of Champions League final
● Late goals give Roma hope after Klopp’s men take five-goal lead
Mo Salah produced two worldclass finishes and set up goals for Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino to lead Liverpool to a 5-2 win over former club Roma, leaving Jurgen Klopp’s side in sight of the Champions League final.
Salah’s display in the semi-final first leg was as exquisite as Roma’s defending was naive, with Liverpool scoring all of their goals in a breathtaking 33-minute spell either side of half-time at Anfield.
The Italian side came back from a 4-1 first-leg loss to Barcelona in the quarter-finals, and goals in the final nine minutes from Edin Dzeko and Diego Perotti have given them a similar deficit to overcome.
Rangers chairman Dave King was among the spectators at Anfield, prompting William Hill to cut the odds on Liverpool academy coach Steven Gerrard to become the next Ibrox manager to 8-11.
Mohamed Salah savaged his former side Roma with a brilliant individual performance in a superb 5-2 Champions League semi-final first-leg victory undermined by two late goals for the visitors.
The Egypt international was the star of a performance which began as a slowburner before turning into a blistering demolition of Serie A’s third-placed team.
However, Roma showed they are still a threat with a late rally which may yet give Jurgen Klopp’s side a nervous 90 minutes at the Stadio Olimpico next week.
Klopp had predicted Salah would face a rough time against the side he left in the summer, but, in truth, none of his former team-mates could do anything to stop him.
He scored two brilliant first-half goals – his 42nd and 43rd of an incredible season – with two also for Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane on target as well as Liverpool made the most of their first Champions League semifinal in a decade.
The downside was goals from Edin Dzeko and Diego Perotti and a knee injury to Alex Oxlade-chamberlain, who left the pitch on a stretcher with his head in his hands and his knee in a brace to put his World Cup in some doubt.
Roma almost silenced Anfield when goalkeeper Loris Karius misread the flight of former Manchester City defender Aleksandar Kolarov’s driven shot but managed to get enough of a hand on it to divert it onto the crossbar.
But it was not long before the hosts had one of those passages of play which has become all too familiar to opposition teams.
They blew away City in the quarter-final with three goals in 19 first-half minutes and it is no exaggeration to suggest they could have put this tie beyond the visitors in the final 17 minutes before the interval. Mane could have had a hattrick, hitting two good chances over and having a sliding effort disallowed for offside, while Salah had a shot palmed away by Roma keeper Alisson having cut in from the right – a precursor of what was to come.
Roma did not heed the warning and a few minutes later Salah was again allowed to cut in and shape a trademark shot with his left foot.
He placed a curling shot in the only spot Alisson could not reach it, jamming it against the angle of post and crossbar on its way over the line.
It was a goal befitting of the occasion but Salah’s second was equally brilliant. The unmarked Lovren headed over as Roma threatened to buckle under the pressure before the Egypt international struck in firsthalf added time.
His exquisite lay-off to Firmino saw the Brazilian storm through midfield before playing a wonderfully-weighted return pass which Salah took one touch to control before dinking a shot over Alisson – a finish of which Lionel Messi would have been proud.
After the break Salah turned provider, racing onto Trent Alexander-arnold’s ball down the line to cross for Mane to turn home from close range.
When Alexander-arnold and Salah combined again, the latter leaving Juan Jesus completely bamboozled, Firmino was the beneficiary from a couple of yards out.
Firmino’s header from a corner made it 5-0 but Dzeko’s neat finish and Perotti’s penalty gave Roma hope of repeating their brilliant quarter-final comeback at home to Barcelona.
Last night, while the Liverpool attack dominated, Robertson’s qualities were still evident as he used his pace, stamina and ability to move the play upfield, offer the advance party support and still ensure that, defensively, he was equal to anything Roma could throw at him.
The first Scot to stake a claim for a Champions League final place since Darren Fletcher made a late second half appearance against Schalke as Manchester United advanced from the last four seven years ago, Robertson looked at home on such an illustrious stage.
While he hailed the unexpected quarter-final victory over Manchester City as the best night of his life, Roma had performed their own heroics against the class of Barcelona. That kept Liverpool humble in the build-up to this one.
On the night Robertson pictured, was tasked with dealing with the energy and positivity of young Turk Cengiz Under. The fact that the 20-year-old was hauled off at the start of the second half as the Italian side looked for a way back into the game, told a tale of how well the former Queen’s Park and Dundee United player had fared. The trademark sprints up the flank were still part and parcel of Robertson’s game and he swung in a beautifully curling cross for Sadio Mane to net just after the half -hour mark. That “goal” was chalked off for offside but that did nothing to dilute the quality of that delivery. Constantly pressing high up the park, offering an option for the men ahead of him, even in the early period, when Roma were getting the turnover, he was alert to any danger in behind him.
On a special night, a blocked shot in the 59th minute, when he looked like getting on the scoresheet, was a personal blow, while the two late Roma goals, for which he can take no blame, put a slight dampener on the partying.
But, for a kid who grew up dreaming of such occasions, to finish the match with his side 5-2 ahead meant there was plenty to celebrate on a night which is surely now a contender for the best of his life.