The Egyptian fired home an incredible long-range strike as Liverpool defeated Chelsea 2-0 in a crucial clash at Anfield <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The noise was as pure as the hit. Guttural, you could call it. An explosion of joy, of delight, of did-that-really-just-happen-I-think-it-happened.<\/p>\n
It happened.<\/p>\n
Anfield was ablaze, the smoke from a single red flare appearing in the corner of the Main Stand. Down at the Kop End, there was delirium, red-shirted mayhem wherever you looked. Limbs everywhere.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
And there, amid the chaos and the noise and the colour and the madness, stood a single Egyptian, his smile wider than the gap between his current club and his former one.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s done some remarkable things in a Liverpool shirt, Mohamed Salah, and he can add this to his collection. He could play until he\u2019s 50, but he will never strike a football more sweetly.<\/p>\n
The goal of the season? It\u2019s certainly one we\u2019ll be seeing for many years to come. Ferocious long-range shooting is not Salah\u2019s stock-in-trade, but he chose a good time to show off his new-found skill here. The King was back on his throne today.<\/p>\n
Liverpool had just taken the lead through Sadio Mane\u2019s back post header when Salah collected one of those trademark Virgil van Dijk diagonals out on the right flank. He had Emerson Palmieri for company, but Jordan Henderson\u2019s overlap created the space to come inside.<\/p>\n
What followed was sensational.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
From an unhelpful angle, and with Jorginho closing him down, Salah let fly with a 25-yard strike of unerring brilliance. Think Robbie Fowler against Aston Villa, or one of Steven Gerrard’s many, many piledrivers. It was that good.<\/p>\n
Kepa Arrizabalaga barely smelt it. It flew past the world\u2019s most expensive goalkeeper, straight into his top right-hand corner. Salah\u2019s 22nd of the season, and unquestionably his finest. A goal worthy of the occasion, a goal worthy of this fantastic Premier League title race.<\/p>\n
This, we were told, would be Liverpool\u2019s biggest hurdle, the one to test their title credentials like no other. Chelsea, Eden Hazard, N\u2019Golo Kante, Maurizio Sarri, the club’s official Twitter feed, they were lining up to take a shot at the Reds, to spoil their party, to break their hearts.<\/p>\n
They couldn\u2019t do it. Not this time, not to this team. This isn\u2019t 2014, it\u2019s 2019, and this Liverpool are a different beast. They\u2019re back on top of the table tonight after this, their seventh successive victory. As the tension grows, Jurgen Klopp\u2019s side are keeping their heads. They’re comfortable where they are, comfortable with who they are. They look like they believe.<\/p>\n
They deserved this win, one built on patience and composure in the first half, aggression and quality in the second. Mane\u2019s header, six minutes after half-time, set them off, Salah put the seal on things in the most outrageous of manners soon after. They all feel big at this time of year, but this one certainly did. Klopp’s fist pumps at the end are familiar now, but they had even more feeling today. “What we did to win this game was amazing,” he beamed afterwards. “It was a fantastic performance, an even better atmosphere and a very important result.”<\/p>\n
Manchester City\u2019s win at Crystal Palace earlier in the day had ramped up the pressure, but Liverpool showed they can handle it. They survived a burst from the brilliant Eden Hazard, rode their luck a tad at 2-0, but got everything they\u2019d dreamed of. The final minutes, for once, were played out in relative comfort. No stoppage-time nerves this time.<\/p>\n
There were big performances everywhere, from Alisson Becker in goal to Trent Alexander-Arnold, the home-grown hero at right-back. Henderson, leading by example, set up a goal and ran himself into the ground, Andy Robertson too. Naby Keita and Fabinho looked like \u00a390million worth of midfielders and more. Mane and Roberto Firmino bristled with menace, a threat from first whistle to last.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Salah, though, is the abiding memory of this afternoon. We\u2019ve seen the ugly side of football this week, but here, on the big stage, for the world to see, was its beauty.<\/p>\n
How Anfield loved it.<\/p>\n
Four to go. They\u2019re going nowhere.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Egyptian fired home an incredible long-range strike as Liverpool defeated Chelsea 2-0 in a crucial clash at Anfield The noise was as pure as the hit. Guttural, you could call it. An explosion of joy, of delight, of did-that-really-just-happen-I-think-it-happened. It happened. Anfield was ablaze, the smoke from a single red flare appearing in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}