LIVERPOOL
IS ALL the guff about the title race being over before Christmas going to stop now?
What about that nonsense about Mo Salah being a one-season wonder?
Too few people outside Anfield have been prepared to accept that a revamped Liverpool with a reinforced defence are ready to see this thing through. Now they have no choice.
Salah now has 12 goals – 10 in the Premier League – from 22 appearances in all competitions this season. By the end here on the south coast, Bournemouth were glad to see the back of him.
Yes, he had scored six more by this stage 12 months ago but Salah is ripping to shreds the idea he is a shadow of last season’s goalscorer supreme.
Over the summer the Egyptian has suffered Champions League heartbreak, controversy over Sergio Ramos, struggled with an injury that he probably should not have played with at the World Cup, and returned to England with massive pressure on him to replicate last season’s heroics.
It was always going to take him some time to get back into the groove.
The sheer impudence of the way he grabbed his hat-trick here, however, suggests there is confidence pumping through his veins once more.
Manager Jurgen Klopp was naturally delighted to have had his complete faith in his star man vindicated.
“I was not for one second worried,” he said. “I don’t know what was written, but we have to develop always and to confirm or to prove again a 41-goal season. Everybody would struggle a little bit. How would you prove it? If you score 10 goals in the first five games, everybody would say ‘it could happen again’, but if you score 39 it would be ‘yeah, but it’s not 41’.
“So we all have to learn to deal with it and Mo has as well. He has never had a season like that and if he wants the season again has to do it step by step. That’s what we do and that’s what he is doing.”
Liverpool take on Napoli in the do-or-dieChampions
League group tie tomorrow and the Liverpool Man City Tottenham Chelsea Arsenal Man Utd Everton Bournemouth Leicester Wolves West Ham Brighton Watford Cardiff Newcastle C Palace Burnley Huddersfield Southampton Fulham D L 3 0 2 1 0 4 4 2 4 2 5 4 5 4 2 7 4 6 4 6 3 7 3 7 2 7 2 10 4 9 3 10 3 10 4 10 6 9 3 11 P W 16 13 16 13 16 12 16 10 16 10 16 7 15 6 16 7 16 6 16 6 16 6 16 6 15 6 16 4 16 3 16 3 16 3 16 2 16 1 16 2 F 34 45 30 33 35 28 21 25 21 17 23 19 18 15 13 13 15 10 13 16 Italians are in rude health after a 4-0 win over Frosinone on Saturday.
Klopp, though, will take on Carlo Ancelotti’s side with a front three primed and ready to rumble.
Salah tucked away the rebound from Roberto Firmino’s shot for his first, and for his second turned the Cherries defence this way and that before finding the Pts 42 41 36 34 34 26 23 23 22 22 21 21 20 14 13 12 12 10 9 9 A 6 9 16 13 20 26 17 26 20 19 25 22 21 30 22 23 32 27 30 40