Reds bounce back and see off Bournemouth

A nervous hush is not what you might expect to accompany the final furlong for a team who led the Premier League by 22 points going into yesterday’s games, but then there have been so few wobbles in this Liverpool season that even one defeat can do strange things to the prevailing mood.

A losing streak of one league game was ended by Jurgen Klopp’s players, albeit not as confidently as the manner in which they have dispatched so many opponents at a stadium where they have now won 22 straight league games – an English top-flight record. In fact, in the last minute of regulation time, Nathan Ake might have equalised, a goal that would not have changed the title race much, other than to add to an unexpected sense of Anfield anxiety.

Ake did not do so, and Liverpool held on for a win that puts them within three victories of that title. They can secure it with wins over Everton at Goodison Park, at home to Crystal Palace and then at the home of Manchester City. Failing that, there are six further games to get those nine points.

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Red machine rolls on against Bournemouth

This devastating Liverpool machine will take some stopping. For the second successive year Jürgen Klopp’s side will sit top of the tree at Christmas after chewing up and spitting out another innocent opponent to move 11 points clear at the Premier League summit. After being overthrown by Manchester City last season the challenge for a Liverpool team juggling five competitions and a marathon festive period is simply to stay put. In eight of the past 11 seasons the leaders on Christmas Day have gone on to clinch the title but Liverpool, eerily, have been the exception on each of those three occasions.

An irresistible performance by a reinvigorated Mohamed Salah, who Klopp declared is again firing at 100%, proved the catalyst as Liverpool extended their unbeaten league record to 33 games. Naby Keïta doubled their advantage following a cool Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain opener before Salah completed the scoring as Liverpool swept aside Bournemouth, who struggled to lay a glove on them. Liverpool queued up in search of a fourth goal but for Klopp the most pleasing takeaways were not needing to call on Sadio Mané and a first clean sheet in 14 matches.

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Wijnaldum fights illness to put in MoM performance

Georginio Wijnaldum has said Liverpool’s title fortunes rest on sustaining the form that dismantled Bournemouth on Saturday, when he shone throughout the 3-0 victory despite suffering illness.

The midfielder capped a man-of-the-match display with a delightful goal, his first at Anfield since October 2017, as Jürgen Klopp’s side reacted impressively to Manchester City overtaking them in the title race. Wijnaldum was named in the lineup only on the morning of the game, having missed training, through illness and he disclosed in graphic detail that he played while suffering with a stomach complaint.

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Reds back on track after Bournemouth win

Jurgen Klopp said later, when the Liverpool title bid was back on track and Anfield becalmed, that there are always difficult times in the season when no-one wants to hear excuses for why points have been dropped, although his faith in his players has never once wavered.

The Liverpool manager left the pitch throwing that celebratory uppercut for the benefit of the home fans who had seen their own side incapacitate the visitors some time before the hour and could have scored six by the end. This was a return to the vintage attacking form of Liverpool before they dropped four points over their previous two games, even if, for Klopp, the essence of his determined, hard-working side had never gone away.

There was a formidable goalscoring performance from the midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum who got off his sickbed to play, and the sheer 90-plus minutes relentlessness of Andy Robertson was compelling once again. Yet when Roberto Firmino rolled his studs over the ball at full speed to play a pass inside for Mohamed Salah to score the third it felt like Anfield had its moment. This was a level of technical quality and team-play with which Bournemouth simply could not live.

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Klopp never doubted Salah form

Jürgen Klopp says he was “not worried for one second” about Mohamed Salah’s form this season but admits both club and player have to learn to deal with the raised levels of expectation that mean the forward’s record-breaking haul in 2017-18 is the yardstick by which he is judged.

Klopp was speaking after Salah scored a brilliant hat-trick in Liverpool’s emphatic 4-0 victory over Bournemouth, taking his league tally for the season into double figures as Liverpool racked up a fifth straight top-flight win and supplanted Manchester City at the top of the table.

It was an exhilarating performance from Salah and prompted the question of whether Klopp smiles when he hears people asking if the 26-year-old has been quite the same player this season. The manager said: “Look, your business [the press] is a difficult one as well – you have to judge always the moment. I’m interested in the moment but I never judge it because the moment is just a little part of all what we do. So I was not for one second worried.

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Salah hat-trick as Reds rout Cherries

The general consensus seems to be that Mohamed Salah has not been quite the same player this season. On this evidence there is nothing to worry about after the striker produced a wonderful individual display that finished with him walking off the pitch with the matchball under his arm.

A brilliant hat-trick was completed in style – Asmir Begovic, the Bournemouth goalkeeper, ended up on his backside, Steve Cook was trailing in Salah’s wake for the umpteenth time and Nathan Aké stood helpless on the line – as Salah flicked the ball into the net with the outside of his left boot.

By that stage the game had already turned into an exercise in damage limitation for Bournemouth, who were entitled to feel aggrieved that Salah’s first goal had been allowed to stand – he strayed into an offside position just before – but could have no complaints about the final outcome after contributing to their own downfall with some desperately poor defending.

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