Salah double as Liverpool inch closer to the Premier League title
Liverpool 3 Southampton 1, 8th March 2025
LIVERPOOL 3 (Núñez 51, Salah 54 and 88)
SOUTHAMPTON 1 (Smallbone 45+1)
Before the start of play today, a gargantuan 58 points separated Arne Slot’s table topping Liverpool from Ivan Jurić and his basement dwelling, already nailed on certainties for relegation Southampton team yet for 45 minutes, THE greatest shock in recent Premier League history was on the cards and threatening to become an embarrassing reality. The “Saints” from the south coast edged a quietly nervous first 45 minutes and where Arne Slot had called for a raucous Anfield for the first of their “3 Cup Finals” in 8 days, the Coliseum was hushed into silence and long, long before Reds skipper Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker presented a gift of a goal in first half injury time to Will Smallbone. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that the Reds boss had one or two quiet words at half-time and I think it’s safe to assume he had eight or nine angry words too, and combined with a triple substitution, the energy of Harvey Elliott and Andy Robertson and Luis Díaz a man transformed, 0–1 became 2–1 in the space of 3 noisy and hectic minutes, calm was restored, the Egyptian King set yet another club record that will never be reached in my lifetime, and those oh so Mighty Reds of Liverpool now sit 16 points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Complacency? The after effects of Wednesday’s incredible, and incredibly taxing performance in Paris? Cautious before Tuesday’s return with PSG? One eye on next Sunday’s showdown with Newcastle United at Wembley? Whatever the reasoning or explanations raised from armchair quarterbacks such as myself, what’s clear is that Liverpool were bloody awful in the first half: No energy, sharpness or invention, and I was crying out for the half-time whistle long before calamity came knocking in first half injury time. Within 2 minutes of the re-start Harvey Elliott had already thundered a goal bound shot that Aaron Ramsdale brilliantly tipped past his far post and crucially, in this fan’s eye especially, the ball was now being quickly recycled to Luis Díaz time and time again, and although the Colombian magician didn’t score, he was involved in all 3 Reds goals. Mazy runs to the dead-ball line produced both a cross for Darwin Núñez to level matters on 51 minutes and late on for Saints defender Yukinari Sugawara to inexplicably nudge the ball to safety with his elbow and thus providing the Reds with a second penalty today and his own double after doing likewise in this season’s earlier fixture at St Mary’s. Today’s first penalty of two may have been a tad soft following Will Smallbone’s clumsy tackle on Darwin Núñez, but don’t discount the move that led to the eventual penalty award and particularly Luis Díaz’s stinging shot that Aaron Ramsdale could only parry skyward and with chaos ensuing and the ball now at the feet of Darwin Núñez, Smallbone had to make a clean tackle and didn’t, and Mo Salah did the rest from the penalty spot.
Talking of the Egyptian King, his two goals today ensured he skipped past Gordon Hodgson to become the Reds 3rd all time top goal scorer in their 133 storied years of existence with 243 career goals and whilst that will surely stand for my lifetime and perhaps generations to come, Salah must be eyeing second place and the 43 career goals needed to usurp Roger Hunt. If only he had the contract he so desires to remain at Liverpool for the rest of his record breaking career eh? For today he also equalled Sergio Agüero’s all time Premier League goal scoring tally of 184 and 4 more will see Salah leapfrog past Andrew Cole as the 4th all time Premier League goal scorer and the Egyptian King will be earmarking another 21 goals to overtake a certain Wayne Rooney in third place. If only he had a contract to sign rather than the availability to leave for free in the summer.
If only.
All of which is for the future and with one “Cup Final” dealt with and a 16 point cushion at the top of the Premier League assured (for 24 hours at least), it’s onto arguably the Reds biggest game of the season so far and the visit of PSG on Tuesday and then, guess what? The third Cup Final in 8 days and the biggest game of the Reds season so far!
Let’s see what the boss thought of it all today.
Arne’s Afterword
“I didn’t give them compliments at half-time, I can tell you. Maybe it was because I was sitting up there instead of being at the line because I know from experience, not that I’ve been suspended before, that when you watch a game over there, you always feel like, ‘Maybe I can even play in this game.’ But if you are then at the line it’s always more tempo. But I don’t think I was wrong this time if I said at half-time that energy levels were far, far, far too low. That is what had to change and that’s why we made three substitutions just to, apart from bringing in quality, also create something”.
“The first goal, if you look at Lucho, how he takes that one-v-one on, I don’t think I can select a clip where that happened in the first half. In the second goal, Ryan Gravenberch pushed up all the way at the 18-yard line to win that ball which led to the foul on Darwin, whereas in the first half every ball that fell out they could just pick up the ball and start to play. The energy in the stadium for the players and the fans in the second half was completely different than the first half”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books too. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon