London: Champions Liverpool are in a position to defend their Premier League title after a 3-1 win over an in-form West Ham. Playing a major role in Liverpool’s performance was Mohammad Salah who ended his recent scoring drought with two goals, the second of which had a distinctly magical touch about it and took his tally of goals to 21 for the season.
He is the first player to net 20-plus goals in four successive seasons for Liverpool since Ian Rush who had six in a row from 1981 to 1987.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp spoke about Salah: “I’m not surprised, I work on a daily basis together with him. He will never stop having a massive desire to score goals. He’s a world-class player no doubt about it.”
Klopp added: “We scored wonderful goals. All three were unbelievable and I’m really happy. The first goal was a proper smart goal, top-class. His second goal, what a counter-attack, his first touch was outstanding, world class.”
Liverpool enjoyed more of the possession in the goalless first half but West Ham missed a chance to take the lead after 24 minutes when Pablo Fornals shot was headed away en route to goal. Liverpool opened the scoring in the 57th minute after substitute Curtis Jones supplied a pass in a flowing cross-field move to Salah who cut inside, dummied Aaron Cresswell and curled his shot sweetly into the far corner.
It took just 11 minutes for the visitors to double the lead. It started with a West Ham corner which was headed clear to Trent Alexander-Arnold whose diagonal ball found Xherdan Shaqiri.
The midfielder then sent a perfect cross-field pass to Salah. The Egyptian needed just one touch to control the ball with his right foot and then moving it to the left with the outside of his left boot he flicked it past a helpless Lukasz Fabianski. It was simply marvellous.
Asked to comment on his goal, Salah humbly said: “It was a great ball from Shaq, credit to him. The ball was exactly at my feet, so one touch and then finish. He added: “It was a good win for us and we need to win every game now.”
Six minutes before the end, Gini Wijnaldum added the third, prodding in a pass from Roberto Firmino.
The Hammers got a consolation goal three minutes later with Craig Dawson scoring from a corner.
Andy Jalil
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
