Liverpool handed a serious take a look at of their Premier League title credentials to maneuver again to the highest of the desk by beating Chelsea 2-1 at Anfield on Sunday. Mohamed Salah’s penalty and Curtis Jones’ winner made it 10 wins in 11 video games for the Reds since Arne Slot took cost. Nicolas Jackson briefly levelled for Chelsea within the second half, however they slipped to a primary league defeat since dropping to Manchester City on the opening weekend of the season. Victory takes Liverpool one level forward of City and 4 away from Arsenal, who they face on the Emirates subsequent weekend.
Chelsea at the moment are seven factors off the highest down in sixth, however there was loads trigger for optimism for the Blues from a efficiency that stretched Liverpool to their limits.
Liverpool’s solely defeat below Slot got here to Nottingham Forest following September’s worldwide break.
The Dutchman responded by this time leaving all of his South American internationals — Alexis Mac Allister, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez — on the bench after their exertions in current days throughout the Atlantic.
The determination handy Jones simply his second league begin of the season proved an impressed one because the England worldwide gained Liverpool’s penalty and scored the decisive objective.
Chelsea had been lucky nonetheless to have 11 males on the sphere after simply six minutes when Tosin Adarabioyo hauled down Diogo Jota.
The Portugal worldwide was nonetheless a good distance from objective however the incident was nearly an identical to the one which noticed Arsenal defender William Saliba sent-off in a 2-0 defeat at Bournemouth on Saturday.
Having survived that scare, Chelsea settled properly into their rhythm and pushed the house aspect again by dominating possession.
However, Liverpool’s tempo on the break was a relentless menace and Chelsea had been caught out when Salah fed Jones, who was chopped down by Levi Colwill.
Salah slammed dwelling his tenth objective towards his former membership from the ensuing penalty.
Moments later, Cody Gakpo slotted in on the finish of a lightning Liverpool counter-attack, however Salah had strayed offside earlier than delivering the help.
At the opposite finish, Jackson smashed off the angle of submit and bar within the first signal that Chelsea had some punch to their possession soccer.
Chelsea, although, had one other escape simply earlier than half-time when referee John Brooks intially pointed to the spot as soon as extra when Jones went down below a problem from Robert Sanchez.
VAR intervened, nonetheless, because the Spanish goalkeeper received a contact on the ball earlier than making contact with Jones.
Within three minutes of the restart for the second half, the Blues had been again stage as VAR performed one other serving to hand for the guests.
Jackson latched onto Moises Caicedo’s by means of ball and coolly slotted previous Caoimhin Kelleher for his fifth objective in eight Premier League video games.
The Senegalese striker was dominated offside on the sphere, however was proven to be performed on by Ibrahima Konate on replay.
Liverpool took simply three minutes to revive their lead as Jones timed his run completely to manage and flick in Salah’s cross.
Chelsea pressured Slot’s males to defend their lead for the ultimate 40 minutes however struggled to create clear-cut probabilities for the equaliser till seven minutes of stoppage time.
Renato Vega headed over Cole Palmer’s free-kick earlier than Christopher Nkunku didn’t get a telling contact to Pedro Neto’s teasing cross.
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