A brace from Mohamed Salah plus goals from Curtis Jones and Cody Gakpo ensured Liverpool got their 2024 off to a flying start on New Year’s Day.
Their 4-2 win over Newcastle United at Anfield ensured that the Reds took a three point lead at the top of the Premier League table heading into the second half of the season.
Here’s 90min’s four key takeaways from the impressive victory.
A lot of what Darwin Nunez does during a game is very good. He links play well, he stretches defences with his consistent runs in-behind, and his hold-up is improving with each passing week.
The one thing he doesn’t do well, however, is the most important thing of all for a striker: scoring goals.
Nunez has now scored just one goal since the start of November, with no other player in the Premier League spurning more big chances than him so far this season – missing 18 in total so far.
Monday night’s game was another example of Nunez’s struggles in front of goal as the striker spurned another 1.7 xG worth of chances and with the scores locked level until the 74th minute mark, it seemed like his frugality in front of goal would end up costing Liverpool.
Ultimately, Klopp’s decision to hook Nunez and bring on Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo proved to be key as the latter bagged an important third goal while the former won a penalty and registered an assist.
With Nunez struggling in front of goal and Gakpo and Jota impressing off the bench, it’s surely time for Klopp to make some changes to Liverpool’s starting forward line.
Your reaction to that sub-heading was: ‘well duhhhh‘.
And rightfully so, but we’ll say it anyways.
Mohamed Salah is the best player in the Premier League right now, and his 22 goal contributions in 20 games are the main reason why Liverpool are sitting atop of the table. He once again proved to be the difference maker for the Reds against Newcastle on New Year’s Day, bagging a brace and an assist during a mesmeric second half performance.
Unfortunately the game against Newcastle will be the last Salah will play for Liverpool for a few weeks due to AFCON and while Klopp does have plenty of quality options in attack, none of them are quite Salah, are they?
Manchester City are the most impressive team in the Premier League; Liverpool are the funnest. It’s been that way ever since Pep Guardiola took over at the Etihad and Jurgen Klopp took over at Anfield.
While Man City are continuing to squeeze the life out of teams with ball retention, Liverpool are killing teams through sheer volume of chances created.
On Monday, Liverpool amassed a record 7.2 xG thanks to their 34 shots on goal. Throughout the season so far, the Reds have actually taken 55 more pops at goal than any other team in the league.
What Liverpool are doing is outrageous, and an absolute joy to watch.
Having been a squad for much of his Liverpool career to date, it seems that Curtis Jones has now firmly cemented his place in the starting lineup.
And deservedly so.
With Alexis Mac Allister out injured, Ryan Gravenberch struggling to adapt to life in the Premier League, and Dominik Szoboszlai enduring a dip in form, Jones’ work rate and quality on the ball have ld to him becoming arguably the Reds most important midfield player in recent weeks.
The 22-year-old should be one of the first names on the teamsheet for the rest of the season.
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