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They've grown accustomed, over the years, to the thick fog which can drift
up to this place from the Mersey and obscure the way. It
was more disorientating than usual last night: eddies of
mist cloaking the pitch one minute, clearing the next,
then enveloping it once more.
But Liverpool are a side now playing with utmost clarity
of thought and vision. Though there was a temptation, having conceded
early, to throw the sink at Leicester, they spent 39 tense minutes calmly and inexorably securing the
equaliser which by the end had extended into a 22nd win in 26 games for Arne Slot's - taking his side seven points clear at the top with
a game in hand.
The chants of ‘top of the league' - faint and
tentative at first, as if no one dared even tempt
fate about how this all might turn all out - had extended
onto a full-forced roar as Anfield emptied out for the last time this year.
Not for the first time this season, Curtis Jones was a fulcrum
- scoring the decisive second goal in his 100th Premier League appearance,
five years after making his first appearance as a substitute for
Jurgen Klopp at Bournemouth.
So much of what we are witnessing is a product of the work
that Klopp did in developing the squad Slot has inherited and fine-tuned.
On a sofa somewhere, the German will surely be looking wistfully on all of
this. Perhaps he was watching last night's TV feed of Slot striding across towards the Kop after
another day which had confirmed the shocking diminishment of Manchester City, who were such
an obstacle to Klopp for all those years.
Jones has certainly improved under Slot, whose passing philosophy is better suited to his own game, but it was the German who saw what he might become.
Another of the beneficiaries of the new Slot era is Cody Gakpo, who was deployed in so many roles by Klopp and flourished in none of them.
Mohamed Salah scored his 16th Premier League goal of the season to clinch Liverpool's win
The Egyptian produced a stunning finish beyond debutant
Jakub Stolarczyk in the 82nd minute
The Foxes took a shock early lead when Jordan Ayew slotted
home inside just six minutes
Slot employs his compatriot as the wide forward that the player has always considered himself to
be. He repaid that with Liverpool's immaculate equaliser, his
tenth goal of the season, cutting in from the left inside James Justin and arcing a shot into the top corner.
Leicester, who drop into the bottom three for the first time this season, could at least reflect on a better display after crushing defeats to Newcastle and Wolves, and a solid first half defensive display.
Van Nistelrooy is fast becoming acquainted with the unpleasant and brutal realities of managing what has been a poorly run club.
Preparations for this game had included justifiably ditching second choice goalkeeper Danny Ward, after a difficult conversation,
and throwing in third choice Jakub Stolarczyk, a
Pole who'd known loan spells at Hartlepool and Fleetwood
but never - before this - the Premier League. Stolarczyk thrived and was impressive.Liverpool's prior experiences in fog had not generally
been so good. There was a Super Cup tie here against Anderlecht here in 1978, when ended in aggregate defeat, not to mention the 5-1 defeat in Amsterdam in 1966 which had Bill Shankly insisting Ajax ‘got lucky.'
It seemed like there might be more of the same when they fell behind
early. There had been something brooding and ominous about their patient, calculated
build-up in the first five minutes, until Leicester struck on the counter-attack.
A lack of defensive intensity was to blame. Trent Alexander Arnold allowed Stephy Mavididi to level a cross from the left and Andy Roberson allowed Jordan Ayew to bully him as he span onto
a shot which was deflected in off Virgil van Dijk's heel.
‘Trent for the most part was very good, one or two exceptions,' Slot said at the end of
it all. This was certainly one of them.
The home side hit back just before the break through Cody Gakpo, who excelled on the night
The Dutchman curled an effort in the far corner to restore parity after a frustrating
first half
Curtis Jones put Liverpool ahead for the first time with
a well-taken finish after the interval
Arne Slot capitalised on the slip-up of their rivals to move seven points clear at the
summit
For a time, Leicester's counter-attack remained a threat.
It got Joe Gomez booked and it brought a first half full of effort
from Alexis Mac Allister, looking to sweep up as the
others in red shirts buzzed around Leicester's box.
The visitors might have scored again had Mavididi not overhit
a pass to Patson Daka on another counter. The timing of Gakpo's equaliser,
on the stroke of half-time, was brutal for Leicester.
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From the start of the second half, Liverpool looked intent on grabbing the game by
the scruff of the neck. A gorgeous move inside the Leicester box
involving Salah, Mac Allister and Curtis Jones took them ahead, with Jones steering the ball into the
back of the net from Mac Allister's cross. Leicester's
defence tired and Liverpool started turning that unit around,
creating space which had been missing in the first half.
Daka, the Ghanaian, deputising for the injured
Jamie Vardy, fluffed a chance to equalise for 2-2 after escaped van Dijk's attention. Small
margins. Gakpo thought he had added a Liverpool third when he hammered home a loose ball inside the
box but Darwin Nunez was ruled offside. Instead, it was Salah who drove home the win, cutting inside Victor Kristiansen and Jannik Vestergaard
to score.
Slot rebutted the notion that this is now Liverpool's title to lose.
‘Interesting question. I don't look at it that way,' he said.
The great Bob Paisley, Liverpool's most successful manager, would
have shared he sentiment. ‘If you're lost in a fog, you stick
together,' Paisley once said. ‘Then you don't get lost.'
Liverpool