A convincing Boxing Day victory over Leicester City to strengthen what was already a healthy Premier League advantage at the top? Liverpool are chasing this title down like it’s 2019 all over again. And on a day when every other result that was worth checking for went his way, Arne Slot could not have asked for a more perfect Christmas gift for his first one on Merseyside.
Now seven points clear of second-place Chelsea with that game in hand at Everton to come next year, Enzo Maresca’s consistent claims that his team aren’t in a race for the championship might just have more than a kernel of truth to it yet.
Of course, there is plenty of football yet to come before those hopes become anything more firm but the Reds are in the rudest of health as they now prepare for the final game of an eventful – and at times tearful – 2024, away at West Ham United on Sunday evening. At the halfway stage, there will be few making any bombastic claims for any other club’s credentials to last the pace in the coming days. That at least is clear, for now.
For all the neat symmetry of 2019, however, this game bore all the hallmarks of a clash from last time year when the Reds would concede first before being made to find a way back into the contest. It was an occurrence that happened all too often last season and eventually sapped at the energy levels when it really mattered on the home stretch.
Liverpool haven’t needed to do anything like that too often this time around but the muscle memory at least remains in place. They were deserved victors here and their sluggish start was not punished too heavily.
A slack piece of defending after six minutes allowed Jordan Ayew to swivel on Stephy Mavididi’s cross before dispatching low past Alisson Becker and it was another concession where Andy Robertson might have felt he could have done better, having allowed the Leicester forward to get the strike off too easily.
Scotland captain Robertson was excellent in Sunday’s 6-3 win over Tottenham but the legendary left-back is enduring something of a rough patch of form in more general terms just now and it was perhaps a surprise Kostas Tsimikas wasn’t preferred after so much energy was exerted at Spurs.
Liverpool responded as expected but they were unable to supply the touch of finesse that was needed. Robertson’s header hit the post and Mohamed Salah struck the bar before Cody Gakpo pulled something right out of the top drawer to even things up on the cusp of half time.
It was the Dutchman’s eighth goal in 12 games and up there with his opener against Manchester City and the game-clincher versus Real Madrid in its importance. The Foxes defence knew what Gakpo was going to do but they were helpless to stop it as he drifted in field before curling it past stand-in goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk.
Only Salah and Luis Diaz have more than the former PSV Eindhoven man now and his Reds career has been given a new lease of life by Slot and his refusal to deviate from selecting the attacker in the left-wing position where he made his name in the Eredivisie. Two years into his Liverpool career now and Gakpo has never been as influential to the cause.
Liverpool had the lead their first-half response deserved when Curtis Jones, restored in place of Dominik Szoboszlai, converted from Alexis Mac Allister’s cut-back four minutes after the break. The city-centre born Jones is having a fine season and looks much more at home as the most advanced of the midfield three.
Sharing No.10 duties with Szoboszlai means Jones is making decisive contributions at important intervals. Like his winner at Chelsea in October, this was another vital intervention where he was able to make the most of being asked to get into the penalty area more often. He is primed to start at West Ham after substitute Szoboszlai picked up his fifth caution of the season in the second half.
Gakpo’s finish was ruled out after a remarkably long VAR check with Darwin Nunez eventually judged offside after Salah had just about kept himself on. It was harsh on Gakpo, who smashed home like a man in form.
