Salah Shines As Liverpool Beats Brighton 5-1
Liverpool continued their phenomenal goalscoring away from home by hitting five at Brighton to move into the top four of the Premier League for the first time since August.
Jurgen Klopp’s adventurous side have scored 15 goals in their past four away games in all competitions and continued their resurgent league form with a comfortable victory at the Amex Stadium.
Emre Can powered a header beyond Mat Ryan from Philippe Coutinho’s corner after half an hour and the Reds doubled their lead 79 seconds later following a sumptuous move.
Mohamed Salah drove at the Brighton defence and picked out Coutinho, who slid a left-footed cross to the back post for Roberto Firmino to finish efficiently.
Brazil striker Firmino made it 3-0 after Salah’s brilliant assist before Glenn Murray, who had already missed two great chances, beat Simon Mignolet with a penalty following Jordan Henderson’s foul on Shane Duffy.
Brighton had chances to make it more nervy for Liverpool with a second goal, but Coutinho eased any concerns about a repeat of Sevilla’s comeback from 3-0 down in the Champions League by scoring with a cute low free-kick then enticing Brighton defender Lewis Dunk to head into his own net.
Klopp’s side move above Arsenal, who host Manchester United at 17:30 GMT. Brighton drop to 11th in the table.
This was another masterclass in the art of scoring by the Reds, but it was also a triumph of sorts at the other end of the pitch.
Klopp was without several defenders – Jose Gomez (virus) and Joel Matip (injured) were unavailable, Alberto Moreno was rested and Ragnar Klavan (ill) only on the bench – meaning the German fielded an unfamiliar back line in terms of both formation and personnel.
Liverpool lined up with three centre-backs – and one of those was Georginio Wijnaldum, whose reputation was formed as a No.10 in the Netherlands and who had been brought to Anfield in July 2016 to score goals from midfield.
Klopp also selected midfielder Can as the right-sided centre-back and handed left-back Andrew Robertson his first Premier League start since 16 September.
So it was perhaps inevitable Liverpool wouldn’t be rock solid at the back and fortunately for them, other than his penalty kick, Murray was profligate when the re-jigged defence permitted the home side chances.
