By Sulaimon Jamiu
Liverpool thoroughly outclassed Manchester United at Anfield on Tuesday night, with their 4-0 win seeing them move to the top of the Premier League table ahead of rivals Manchester City.
The win puts Jurgen Klopp’s side on 76 points from 32 games, two ahead of Pep Guardiola’s Man City, who play their game in hand against Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday.
The hosts wasted no time taking the lead, as Luis Diaz finished off a quick-hitting counter-attack right in front of David De Gea’s goal from an exquisite Mohamed Salah cross before five minutes.
The Anfield crowd was on their feet in the seventh minute as well, showing their support for United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who was left out of the squad following the death of his newborn son on Monday.
Liverpool gave the home crowd more reasons to cheer in the 22nd minute, this time with Salah the scorer from Sadio Mane’s no-look pass into the area after a well-orchestrated team move.
Egypt international Salah snapped an eight-game scoreless streak for club and country with the goal, while United failed to register a single shot in the first half as Liverpool took a 2-0 lead into the break.
Ralf Rangnick’s men were better after half-time, but Liverpool came to life after a sleepy restart out of the dressing room with Diaz setting up Mane for a clinical first-time finish to put the hosts three goals to the good.
Salah added further gloss to the scoreline, chipping the ball over De Gea’s head after being played in by Diogo Jota to ensure they provisionally moved ahead of Man City in the table.
Liverpool are now riding a 13-game Premier League unbeaten streak, the longest active such streak in Europe’s top-5 leagues and the longest for the Reds since a 27 game run between August 2019 and February 2020.
