MO ON THE MARCH
Liverpool sparkle and it’s 50 up for Salah
Mo Salah was back to his best, firing a double as liverpool blasted Red Star Belgrade aside to inject life into their Champions league campaign. The Egyptian put Jurgen Klopp’s men 2- 0 up after Roberto Firmino had given them the lead. Salah added a second-half penalty — his 50th liverpool goal in just 65 games.
Following Salah’s substitution, Sadio Mane made up for a missed penalty by netting the fourth. The result saw liverpool bounce back from a disappointing late 1-0 defeat at Napoli in their previous Group C fixture. The Reds now top the group after Napoli drew 2-2 at Paris St- Germain but Klopp warned: ‘ This group stays exciting to the end. We can’t do more than keep winning our own games.’
SCORING three goals or more in a European match at home used to be a relatively rare treat, saved for the occasions when your team really cut loose.
Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool team have done it seven times in their last nine Champions League games at Anfield. Since last season began with a 4-2 defeat of the German team Hoffenheim, Liverpool’s goal tally at home in Europe reads: 4, 3, 3, 7, 0, 3, 5, 3, 4. To save you the maths, that makes 32.
Occasionally the opposition have been poor, like here. UEFA’s blueriband competition is not always as brimming with quality as it should be or indeed used to be. Nevertheless, this Liverpool team’s hunger for goals is remarkable. When they get their blood up, they are like a boxer driven forwards by the scent of vulnerability. Punch, punch, punch, punch.
Here it was Roberto Firmino, Mo Salah and Sadio Mane who delivered the blows and that was fitting because each of Liverpool’s front three exhibited improved form. If Klopp picked the three of them with a view to improving confidence, then it will surely have worked.
Mane could even afford to miss a late penalty and slash another shot into the side-netting when played clear in the final minute.
Firmino scored the first but it was Salah’s one-two combination that arrived either side of halftime — the second a penalty — that ensured his team could spend the rest of the evening looking forward to Saturday’s Premier League game against Cardiff.
Liverpool could do with a little more of this against opposition that will be more feisty.
Since cutting loose with four against West Ham on day one, Klopp’s team have been a little cowed by their own exalted standards.
Here we sensed the tide turn a little when Firmino converted Andy Robertson’s pass in the 20th minute. It was a lovely goal, one typical of the kind of football Liverpool can play. It came at a convenient time, too, as Liverpool had been a little slow up until that point.
Xherdan Shaqiri started the move and the little Swiss midfielder had a good game. Signed from Stoke in the summer, he has taken time to adjust to the rhythms of his new team’s football but there is no doubting his talent and he was arguably Liverpool’s best player until he was taken off with the game won.
The pass he played inside the Red Star full back to release the galloping Robertson was perfect and it had to be. The young Scot reached it just in time and his pullback was controlled with his right foot by Firmino and driven into the net with his left. The shot took a slight deflection but probably would have gone in anyway.
That goal did not win the game. Any team — even one as limited as Red Star — can score once. But it changed the mood and it infused Liverpool with belief. With that came the courage to play on instinct and with that came some incisive, flowing, intelligent football. On the back of that came opportunities and then goals.
Salah scored his first just before half-time and that was important. Robertson had lashed a good chance wide moments earlier with a real defender’s effort but when Georginio Wijnaldum and Shaqiri eased Salah clear down the right, he drilled his finish in at the near post. It was a decisive strike but the deftness of Shaqiri’s pass off his right instep was magnificent.
Salah’s next goal was a little fortunate. Liverpool had begun the second period at a gallop, determined to enjoy themselves now their mojo was back. Their passing was intricate and slick and they were starting to try things that other teams may not.
Still, the penalty awarded to them was soft. Mane was perhaps modestly impeded by Filip Stojkovic as he tried to go by him in the 50th minute, but certainly not enough to send the Senegal striker to the ground.
Nevertheless the Red Star player was penalised for an arm across the top of the chest — Mane went down holding his face — and Salah drove the penalty down the middle after seeing the goalkeeper commit himself far too early.
Salah scored the winner at Huddersfield at the weekend but still had not looked altogether himself. This was much more like it and he would, in all likelihood, have scored a hat-trick had he still been on the field when Liverpool won another penalty with 14 minutes left, this time after a handball.
As it was, Salah’s Liverpool goal tally remained at 50 as he sat among the substitutes and watched Mane’s penalty touched on to the bar by goalkeeper Milan Borjan diving to his right.
Borjan had a good night overall but was to be beaten once more. This time the ball was worked right to left across the area by Liverpool and Mane poked the ball in at the far post.
Klopp will have relished the better form of key individuals and welcomed another clean sheet too. That is seven for the season and such defensive solidity may be important ahead of a visit to Arsenal a week on Saturday.
But perhaps what summed up the way of the modern Liverpool was the chance created by substitute Daniel Sturridge and Firmino for Mane in the last moment. Mane could not convert it but the way Liverpool drove the ball relentlessly from front to back when there was nothing more to prove or gain was telling.
Hunger like that simply cannot be taught.