Liverpool moved eight points clear at the top of the Premier League table with a dominant 5-0 thrashing of West Ham United on Sunday. The Reds extended their unbeaten run to 23 matches as they ran riot at the London Stadium.
Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah gave Liverpool a convincing lead at the break, before Trent Alexander-Arnold and Diogo Jota wrapped up the scoring. The only blemish for Arne Slot’s men was the sight of Joe Gomez limping off with a hamstring injury in the first half.
And with the Reds having still only lost once under their Dutch head coach to date, the national media were blown away by another convincing display…
Jason Burt of The Telegraph was left lauding Salah in particular as he wrote: “Liverpool are inevitable. And so is Mohamed Salah and so, unfortunately for them, are West Ham.
“Salah scored his 20th goal of the season, and added two more brilliant assists as the Premier League leaders routinely swept aside a rank West Ham. No player across Europe’s top five leagues can match Salah’s 37 goal contributions so far. The next best is 29.
“This report inevitably must concentrate on the relentlessness of the league leaders – and clear title favourites – and their extraordinary talisman… they are a machine under Arne Slot, with their “Three Kings” of Salah, Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo all scoring in an embarrassingly one-sided first half that ended with West Ham being booed off. Again.
“But, above all, there is a luminous brilliance to Salah. All he touches turns to gold. And goals. Even he appears surprised by his audacious feats.”
He wrote: “It was another spellbinding performance from the player the supporters so affectionately refer to as the ‘Egyptian King’ and his enduring brilliance remains undimmed. Having overtaken the great Billy Liddell to move up to fourth in the all-time scoring charts at Anfield in the 6-3 rout of Tottenham last week, victories over Leicester and now West Ham have given the No.11 two more for his account to edge ever closer to Gordon Hodgson in third.
“Salah is now just 10 away and after scoring 20 for an eighth straight campaign, you would not bet against him moving past Hodgson and making third his own before it’s all said and done this year. How much further he goes after that depends on what happens over that lingering contract issue.
