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ROCKET MAN MO DESTROYS RAFA91

Salah hits brace for explosive Liverpool

MARTIN SAMUEL Chief Sports Writer at Goodison Park

The seventh best player in the world apparently, Mo Salah. So it wasn’t just Robert Lewandowski who got short-changed in Paris on Monday night.

Those other six must have rare talent indeed, to push Salah so far down the rankings. What he did here decided a Merseyside derby that was closer than it deserved to be, despite a scoreline that embarrassed everton. Twice, he took advantage of errors by the home team to speed away and score, one on one, against Jordan Pickford. And that was pretty much the difference between the teams.

On the scoresheet, at least. In real terms there is a widening gulf as Liverpool hit a purple patch and everton find a briar patch, and tumble into it head first. They haven’t won since mid-September and a mood of insurrection was in the air at the end here.

Abuse was directed at sporting director Marcel Brands and former chairman Bill Kenwright, and the presence of Rafa Benitez in the dugout was never going to help the ambiance unless results were good. The honeymoon, such as it was, can be considered well and truly over now.

There was a brief period when Demarai Gray pulled one back and raised the Goodison rafters but, by the end, there were swathes of vacated blue seats and those fans who remained were doing so only to voice their displeasure.

It did not help that the red corner of the ground was singing the everton manager’s name with greater glee and gusto than the home crowd have ever managed. ‘Rafa’s at the wheel’, they mocked, then, ‘You’re going to boo in a minute’. And they duly did.

So while there was a spell in the middle of this game in which everton scrappily fought their way back into it, by the end the scoreline did not flatter Liverpool. They were much the better team, even if derbies are always ferocious affairs and in Salah they have a player who cut through the savagery with coolness and class.

he is unaffected by the tension and drama. Once in either half he broke free on the counter-attack, scored both times, and decided the game. The first ushered in a two-goal first-half gap that proved insurmountable, the second restored it just as evertonians were living in hope of scoring another against the run of play.

Liverpool are the first team to score two goals or more in 18 consecutive games and Salah has found the net in 12 of them, a total of 17 goals across that spell.

It is not just those he converts, but those he makes, too. Burnley are alone in the Premier League this season in stopping him from scoring or assisting a goal. That is what Salah does. he decides games, and often the biggest ones. he’s not the seventh best anything. What matches are those Ballon d’Or judges watching?

Jurgen Klopp says he hates the intensity of the derby and given the havoc this fixture wreaked on his season last year, it is not hard to see why. Yet, for the neutral, the noise generated when everton found an unlikely route back into this game was spine-tingling. Until that moment, it looked as if

Liverpool would have it easy. Suddenly, there was a game on and a soundtrack to accompany it.

Some everton fans had headed for the exits when Liverpool’s second went in after just 19 minutes. Others unfurled a banner critical of the board. Yet once Gray scored, the place erupted, grievances briefly forgotten. It helped that the locals had already taken against referee Paul Tierney for booking Andros Townsend for diving and Allan for a tackle that, on close inspection, looked harsh but fair. They had a point. Yet minor injustices aside, at the moment when Gray offered hope, everton were being overwhelmed.

Liverpool had set off like the clappers. Jordan Pickford made a string of acrobatic saves as Liverpool threatened to run up a score that would have left Benitez and his players with nowhere to hide. The first minute saw a hopeful ball upfield cause panic in the everton ranks as Sadio Mane harried. A panicked corner was conceded, headed just wide by Joel Matip. he should have done better.

Mane then turned provider, a low cross from the left struck first time on the turn by Salah and forcing the first big save of the night from Pickford, quickly down to tip round. Yet everton could not survive such a relentless onslaught and in the ninth minute Liverpool found a way through.

Mane started it, on the left once more, finding Andrew Robertson, who got in a great under-lapping position before taking the less obvious option and cutting the ball back to the edge of the D.

There was henderson and his finish was a delight. Not just a shot, but one that was steered with accuracy past Pickford from range. Liverpool celebrated, not provocatively, in a corner populated by home fans, but that was still too much for Klopp. Mindful of trying to take the hostility out of the atmosphere, as much as the game, he screamed at them to get back into their own half.

This is never an occasion that slips under the radar, however. Trent Alexander-Arnold forced another lovely save from Pickford with a shot from the edge of the area, then Salah took the stage.

everton lost possession during a rare forward foray and Liverpool’s counter-attacking wit made them pay. Alexander-Arnold saw Salah in a foot race with everton’s defence and immediately fancied his team-mate’s chances. he was right, too, Salah out-stripping several blue shirts before sticking the ball smartly past Pickford.

When everton pulled one back, it was thanks to a rare mistake in Liverpool’s back line. Matip and Virgil van Dijk left Gray far too much space, meaning Richarlison could pick him out easily. Alisson came rushing out to clear, but the former Leicester man finished sharply. Goodison came alive with more than dissent, at last.

everton’s best spell followed, at the start of the second half. It

ended just after the hour when Seamus Coleman made a mistake and Salah removed all hope of an unlikely comeback. Coleman was trying to recycle the ball when he gifted it to Salah, a thoroughbred running against a field of dray horses. His finish was exemplary, leaving Pickford no chance again.

By the end, Liverpool were in control, the fourth a humbling final flourish. It was set up by Robertson and finished by Diogo Jota, who’d had a quiet game after his fireworks against Southampton. None of Liverpool’s forwards stay silent for long, though. Certainly not that one who isn’t as good as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema or Jorginho. Apparently.

PREMIER LEAGUE

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2021-12-02T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-02T08:00:00.0000000Z

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