England’s LIVERPOOL, Oct. 16 (Reuters) – A superb second-half goal from Mohamed Salah earned Liverpool a 1-0 victory over Manchester City on Sunday as the champions lost their unbeaten start to the Premier League season in a heated thriller that saw home coach Juergen Klopp red-carded.
Liverpool entered the game having had their worst Premier League start after eight games since 2012–13. Salah ran away from Joao Cancelo to score and give Liverpool a much-needed victory.
The Egypt international, like many of his team mates, had also struggled to get going, but after scoring the fastest Champions League hat-trick in Liverpool’s 7-1 rout of Rangers in midweek, his telling strike 14 minutes from fulltime continued his side’s mini-revival.
With the victory, Liverpool climbed to eighth place in the rankings with 13 points, 10 points behind second-place City and four points behind toppers Arsenal.
Given that City had not lost in 22 away games and Liverpool had not in their previous 27 home league games, something had to give.
However, after a disappointing first half in which City’s Erling Haaland twice came close to scoring his 21st goal of an incredible season, the second half got underway with a furious tempo.
Salah was denied by a superb save from City goalkeeper Ederson moments after the break, before City then thought they had taken the lead through Phil Foden, only for it to be ruled out following a VAR review, Haaland deemed to have fouled Fabinho in the build-up.
MILLION INJURIES
Pep Guardiola, the City coach, was enraged on the sidelines as the referee was requested to have another look and much more so when it was ruled out. He turned to argue with some Liverpool fans who were watching from the stands.
Guardiola added, “There were a million, one, million fouls like this and this one is because we scored a goal. The referee screamed play on, play on, play on. “So they disallowed because we scored a goal, otherwise it would not have been disallowed.
We made a mistake and lost, but this is Anfield.
After City’s goal was disallowed, Salah delivered a beautiful cross that Diogo Jota nearly headed in, but the Portuguese forward missed the goal from close range, sending the Spaniard’s blood pressure over the sky.
Liverpool kept coming at City after their VAR reprieve, with Salah spinning away superbly after a slip from Cancelo before firing the winner, sparking wild celebrations on the Kop.
With nine goals and five assists, Salah has now directly contributed to 14 goals for Liverpool against City in all competitions, which is the most of any opponent.
Late in the game, as City put everything at Liverpool, tensions erupted, and Klopp was sent to the stands for his excessive protests against a foul he believed his team should have received.
The final pass was lacking for the visitors in the end as Liverpool held on for just their third league win of the season..
Liverpool’s Super Salah kicks off the season as Man City suffers its first loss.
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