Liverpool 3-1 Leicester City: Talking points as Reds increase Premier League title race lead

Liverpool’s dream season under Arne Slot continues. On Thursday evening, they played host to Leicester City at Anfield, and despite an early scare, normal service was eventually resumed as goals from Cody Gakpo (45’+1), Curtis Jones (49′) and Mohamed Salah (82′) overturned Jordan Ayew’s opener for the Foxes.

The teams

Slot has recently spoken about a number of players returning from injury playing its part in the successes of his team at the moment. Defenders Conor Bradley and Ibrahima Konate are the only ones still in the treatment room.

Alisson Becker between the posts, Trent Alexander-Arnold on the right, Andy Robertson on the left, Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez as the centre-backs – they all took up their usual positions in the back four. Ryan Gravenberch again stood next to Alexis Mac Allister in midfield, but one of the changes slot made was Curtis Jones starting with them, instead of Dominik Szoboszlai. The other was Darwin Nunez replacing Luis Diaz in attack, with Gakpo on the left and Salah on the right.

Leicester goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, winger Abdul Fatawu, as well as the experienced trio of Jamie Vardy, Wilfred Ndidi and Ricardo Pereira, were unavailable for selection through different injury problems. Interestingly enough, former Liverpool goalkeeper Danny Ward didn’t even make the bench, despite Hermansen’s absence.

Instead, manager Ruud van Nistelrooy put Jakub Stolarczyk in goal. The one ex-Liverpool man who did make the cut in the visitors’ ranks was Conor Coady, who partnered Jannik Vestergaard in the heart of defence. Victor Kristiansen was on the left defensive flank, James Justin on the right. Boubakary Soumare and Harry Winks paired up in the middle of the park, while Stephy Mavididi, Bilal El Khannous and Ayew supported Patson Daka up front.

Game recap

Liverpool started strongly and put Leicester through their paces in the fourth minute already, giving Stolarczyk a chance to show why he was picked to start. The Foxes goalkeeper did brilliantly, preventing first Salah and then Jones from scoring from close range, a few seconds apart.

But the Reds seem to have underestimated their opponents and were soon made to pay the price. Minute six was running when Mavididi broke down the left, got away from Alexander-Arnold and put in a low cross easily past Gravenberch, and while both Gomez and Van Dijk looked too lazy to do anything about it, Robertson wasn’t quick enough as he followed Ayew into the box. The former Crystal Palace forward turned skillfully and fired, the shot catching a deflection off Van Dijk on it’s way into the bottom corner. A shock at Anfield.

There is, however, a number of very good reasons why Liverpool top the Premier League table, and one of the indisputable ones is their ability to recover from early setbacks. Chance after chance they created in response to going down. Stolarczyk thwarted Gakpo after 22 minutes, a header from Robertson in the 25th hit the post, and Salah couldn’t hit the target from a difficult close-range position in the 31st. The Egyptian did hit the crossbar in the 45th, a minute before Gakpo got rid of Justin and cut inside to score with a lovely curler.

Sensing weakness in the opponents’ defensive ranks, Liverpool increased the pressure straight from the restart, and having passed the ball in and around Leicester’s box, Mac Allister eventually pulled it back to the six-yard line from where Jones found it easy to score and get his team ahead.

Naturally, a 2-1 lead with over 40 minutes left to play was nowhere near enough for Liverpool, and they continued attacking. Stolarczyk made a top-class save to deny Nunez, and Gakpo had a goal disallowed for offside.

And the hosts got their reward with just under 10 minutes to go, when Gakpo did some brilliant work in the middle of the park and employed Salah on the right. The Egyptian was simply too good for Kristiansen and on this occasion, too good for Stolarczyk as well as his shot bounced into the far bottom corner, setting the final score of the match.

The gap increases

With Chelsea unexpectedly losing at home to Fulham and Manchester City failing to beat Everton, Liverpool have strengthened their grip on the top spot in the Premier League table. The gap between them and Chelsea in second place is now seven points wide, and they have a game in hand as well. Manchester City have dropped to seventh, with 14 points separating them from Liverpool, and it feels safe at this point that Pep Guardiola’s side are out of the title race – as strange as that sounds.

Nottingham Forest, on the other hand, continue to impress this season. Having beaten Tottenham Hotspur, they sit third, nine points behind the leaders. They are likely to be overtaken by Arsenal, though, when the Gunners face 19th-place Ipswich Town on Friday evening.

But at this point in the season, it seems Liverpool are truly on their way to equal Manchester United’s record tally of 20 league titles at the end of May next year, as much for the advantage over their rivals as the consistency they’ve shown since the start of the campaign. The only slightly worrying aspect of their current form is the fact that this was their fourth league game in a row in which they failed to keep a clean sheet, and Slot will probably want to look into that.

This game has also left a mark on Leicester’s campaign. With Wolverhampton Wanderers stunning Manchester United, Van Nistelrooy’s team is now inside the relegation zone, in 18th place with 14 points from 18 matches played. A long and hard battle to avoid returning to the Championship awaits the Foxes.