Battered and bruised for 48 first-half minutes by Brighton, top of the Premier League after 96: Liverpool’s mentality monsters live on. A second-half transformation, another stupendous goal from the Mohamed Salah collection and their closest rivals losing conjured the perfect day for Arne Slot’s side out of a far from perfect performance.
Salah curled a trademark winner into the top corner of Bart Verbruggen’s net less than three minutes after Cody Gakpo had cancelled out Ferdi Kadioglu’s first-half opener, to move ahead of Robbie Fowler into eighth in the all-time Premier League goalscorer’s chart. Thierry Henry is next in his sights. More importantly, the 164th goal of Salah’s Premier League career moved Liverpool two points clear of Manchester City after their defeat at Bournemouth and a significant seven above Arsenal. No one who witnessed the first half will be getting carried away but the manner of Liverpool’s latest comeback, as Slot put it, “gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season”.
