Supersub Sadio
Mane comes off bench to break Canaries’ hearts – and put Reds an astounding 25 points clear
They had to contend with a Norwich City team fighting for their Premier League lives as well as the squalls and rain of Storm Dennis, but even the proverbial act of God was ultimately powerless in stopping the runaway train that is Liverpool’s 2019/20 Premier League title bid.
Jurgen Klopp’s team are now 25 points clear of Manchester City – having played one game more than the second-placed team – which means that the gap between the leaders and Pep Guardiola’s team is the same as it is between last season’s champions and 16th-placed Bournemouth.
It rained, the wind blew and Norwich’s defence held firm until the introduction of the incomparable Sadio Mane to decide the game, courtesy of his 100th goal in English football.
He had not played since limping off in the first half of the win at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Jan 23 with a hamstring problem and yet when the moment arrived it looked like he had never been away. That Liverpool record now stands at an astonishing 43 consecutive games unbeaten in the league, and 17 straight wins – they are so far clear at the top that there are no longer questions to Klopp about if it can be done, all that remains to be settled is when it will be done.
Five wins away from a first Premier League title in 30 years and 10 clean sheets in their last 11 games. By the end it was simply a case of Klopp commiserating with Guardiola over his club’s two-year ban from Uefa competitions about which he could afford to be generous. “I feel for Pep and the players because, wow, they did for sure noth- ing wrong,” Klopp said. “They just played football – sensational football.”
Klopp condemned his fellow German Daniel Farke to the seventh defeat in Norwich’s last 13 games. It was a tenacious performance from the bottomplaced side, with a little more ringcraft than their 4-1 loss at Anfield on the first day of the season. Klopp said that his team had not quite adapted to the conditions in the first half and failed to push their press high enough to support the occasional long ball, although by the second half they were dominant.
The introduction of Mane ultimately proved decisive. He took a long ball from Jordan Henderson in mid-air with his left foot and then dispatched his shot inside Tim Krul’s near post. The Liverpool striker conceded that he might have given the centre-back Christoph Zimmermann a “little push” at the crucial moment, although he could not see anything wrong with it. Farke thought that the video assistant referee Paul Tierney would have intervened but reasoned that missing the push did not constitute a “clear and obvious error” and so held back from intervening in the review.
“I don’t complain,” Farke said, “because I have learned during this season that it never works in our favour. If the referee [Stuart Attwell] had given a free kick for us, VAR would not have overturned it because there was a push, definitely. But he allowed the goal and the VAR thought it was not a clear and obvious mistake.”
There was one chance for Norwich, in the first half, which Klopp thought was offside and which Lukas Rupp and Teemu Pukki conspired to miss between them. With just the goalkeeper Alisson between the pair of them and the goal, Rupp stumbled over his pass and the Brazilian got down to slap the ball away. Whenever Liverpool found themselves in trouble at the back, which was rare, it was their goalkeeper who came to the rescue and along with Henderson he was one of the game’s outstanding players.
“Two against one, this must be a goal against Liverpool if you want to get any points out of this game,” Farke reflected later. “When I compare this chance with the situation in which Mane was able to score, our chance was much bigger but they were able to score and that’s the difference in terms of individual quality. It was definitely a moment of magic [from Mane]. A world-class finish.”
It was not until just before the hour that Liverpool’s pressure looked like it might finally overwhelm the hosts, starting with a shot from Naby Keita and then a Virgil van Dijk header.
This is the point when Liverpool’s opponents usually find themselves squeezed and starved of possession – and for a few moments it looked like Norwich would be broken. Watched by the Holland manager Ronald Koeman, Krul saved first from Mohamed Salah and then got the rebound away from Keita as he came in to follow up.
Klopp made his changes on the hour when Mane came on for Alex OxladeChamberlain and Fabinho for Georginio Wijnaldum, a switch that restored the famous front three for the first time since Mane’s injury.
There had been plenty of life in Norwich for all that and Alex Tettey struck a post with a shot from the right side. Norwich are seven points adrift of safety with 12 games left and Farke estimates that they need six wins to survive – “a little miracle” as he calls it.
The winning goal, when it finally came, was beautifully executed. It was a savage reminder to Norwich of the qualities of the players who are running away with the league title and left them wondering how you stop a man capable of scoring that kind of goal, within a few minutes of a comeback after three weeks away. It was another win for Liverpool in what has become an inevitable title season which will, on this evidence – be over very soon. Norwich (4-4-1-1) Krul 7; Aarons 6, Zimmermann 7, Hanley 7, Byram 5 (Lewis 27); Rupp 6 (Buendia 83), Tettey 7 (Drmic 84), McClean 6, Cantwell 6; Duda 6; Pukki 6. Subs Fahrmann (g), Godfrey, Vrancic, Hernandez. Booked Hanley. Liverpool (4-3-3) Alisson 8; Alexander-Arnold 6, Gomez 6, Van Dijk 7, Robertson 7; Keita 6 (Milner 84), Henderson 8, Wijnaldum 6 (Fabinho 60); Salah 7, Firmino 6, Oxlade-Chamberlain 6 (Mane 60). Subs Adrian (g), Lovren, Lallana, Origi. Booked Keita, Mane. Referee Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire)