With Manchester City only managing a draw earlier in the afternoon, Liverpool FC needed to beat bottom-of-the-table Wolverhampton Wanderers to take over at the top of the table. The Reds did just that, albeit by the narrowest of margins.
Liverpool, who fielded ten new players compared to their 5-1 League Cup win over West Ham United (only Diogo Jota started again), had a very difficult time against bottom-of-the-league Wolverhampton for a long time and often came up a step too late against the brave Wolves. Gary O’Neil’s team, who had only managed to collect one point so far, looked assured and played some good combinations, but they lacked scoring chances.
It wasn’t until the 22nd minute that Matheus Cunha cut inside from the right wing and tested Alisson. It was only after half an hour that the Reds took control of the game and tried to get in front of the Wanderers’ goal. They finally managed to do so on 40 minutes, when Szoboszlai was denied from close range by the strong Johnstone. Shortly afterwards, however, the spell was broken: Diogo Jota was given plenty of space to cross and found Konaté in the center, whose header went in (45′).
The Reds remained dominant after the break, but were too careless with their few big chances. Salah did not accept Leminas’ invitation and missed the open goal with his weaker right foot (50′). Instead, Konaté made a serious mistake on the opposite side, which the Wolves knew how to exploit and equalized out of nowhere (56′).
Salah restores the old distance
This intermediate result should not last long, because just three minutes later, Nelson Semedo pulled his compatriot Diogo Jota to the ground in his own penalty area, leaving referee Anthony Taylor no choice but to point to the spot (59”). Salah, of course, did not miss this chance and restored the old distance in the 61st minute.
Even after that, the Reds still had a few chances to score a third (Jones tested Johnstone in the 79th minute), but defensively the victory was no longer in danger. The Wanderers didn’t create anything more, so Liverpool jumped to the top of the Premier League with their fifth league win, taking advantage of ManCity’s draw.
LFC continue their Champions League campaign against Bologna on Wednesday (9pm), while Wolves are at Brentford next Saturday at 4pm.
