Liverpool sealed a dramatic 5-2 win over relegation candidates West Ham at Anfield this afternoon, and there was plenty to talk about.
Liverpool 5-2 West Ham as Reds see out seven-goal thriller
Liverpool beat West Ham in a match that was as chaotic as it was convincing.
Arne Slot's side moved up to fifth in the Premier League and level on points with fourth-placed Man United, winning four of their last five games.
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot-1
On paper, it looks like a club finding form at the right moment. On the pitch, there were enough loose threads to keep Anfield more anxious than it should have been.
Hugo Ekitiké was the star of the show. The French striker opened the scoring inside five minutes, sweeping in after West Ham failed to properly deal with a corner.
He went on to contribute two assists and was the main creative force throughout. Virgil van Dijk doubled the lead on 24 minutes with a powerful header from Dominik Szoboszlai's delivery, and Alexis Mac Allister added a third just before half-time, volleying into the roof of the net after Ekitike cleverly laid the ball across.
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All three first-half goals came from set pieces — West Ham having already conceded a league-high 15 corner goals this season before kick-off.
The second half was far messier. Tomas Soucek pulled one back within four minutes of the restart, ghosting in between Liverpool's centre-backs to finish from close range after El Hadji Malick Diouf's low cross.
It made for a nervy 20 minutes.
Cody Gakpo had a glaring chance to immediately restore the three-goal cushion but skewed wide from close range, prompting groans around Anfield.
He made amends on 70 minutes, cutting inside and finding the bottom corner. But West Ham kept coming, and Taty Castellanos headed in from a corner to make it 4-2 with 15 minutes left.
west-ham-taty-castellanos-premier-league
The game was eventually sealed when substitute Jeremie Frimpong's cross was turned into his own net by Axel Disasi in the 82nd minute.
Three points, a five-goal haul, and yet one man's performance lingered in the mind for all the wrong reasons.
Mohamed Salah, Liverpool's Egyptian talisman, drifted through the afternoon without leaving a mark, managing one shot that flew well over the bar.
The away end noticed too, and they made their feelings known in pointed fashion.
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah
Sky Sports commentator Laura Hunter captured the mood.
"The Hammers fans are singing about Salah being a rubbish version of Bowen, to put it politely," Hunter said.
"He's barely featured since the break."
Jarrod Bowen, by contrast, was lively throughout for West Ham — causing problems, forcing errors and threatening consistently. The difference between the two wingers was pretty evident on this occasion.
Salah is without a league goal since his strike at home to Aston Villa in November, managing four assists in his last 10 league appearances.
Liverpool are winning, but with the £400,000-per-week winger looking a shadow of himself in recent games, questions about what comes next are only going to grow louder as Salah approaches the twilight phase of his career.
The African megastar signed a massive new deal last year, but his contract was only extended until next summer.
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