In a year when Jürgen Klopp has spent £50m on a forward, Liverpool seem to have gained a prolific scorer. Not Luis Díaz – or not yet, anyway – but Fabinho. Klopp’s title hopes may be faint but they could have been extinguished without his newly potent holding midfielder. Fabinho’s fifth goal of 2022 reduced the gap to Manchester City to nine points; had it not been scored by the man who shields the back four, the temptation would have been to call it a poacher’s strike, scrambled in from half a yard and showing a predatory instinct associated more with strikers.
The importance of a clinical touch was underlined as Burnley lacked one. Their last 851 minutes of top-flight football have yielded them a mere three goals, just as they have a solitary league win here in more than a year.
