Mohamed Salah’s second half brace rescued all three points for Liverpool after going behind against Southampton at St. Mary’s Stadium.
The visitors took the lead directly on the half-hour mark, with Dominik Szoboszlai punishing Alex McCarthy and Flynn Downes after the pair failed to clear their lines with a delightful curled finish.
Southampton hit back, though: Adam Armstrong scored after being awarded a contentious penalty at the end of the first half, and Matheus Fernandes gave them a shock lead in the second half.
But after that, they capitulated, and Mohamed Salah took full advantage. First, McCarthy misjudged a long ball and allowed the Egyptian to tap into a gaping net. Then, Yukinari Sugawara needlessly handballed a cross in the area, gifting a penalty which Salah converted with aplomb.
Liverpool took advantage of three errors, taking them eight points clear at the top of the Premier League table.
As it happened
Where would Southampton be if they weren’t their own worst enemies? Against a thus far impenetrable, unconquerable Liverpool, a win would have been more a bonus than a necessity. But they could’ve won; depending on your school of thought, they perhaps should’ve won. The reason they didn’t? Not the might of Liverpool, but the fragility of themselves.
For the first 30 minutes, they did everything they could. They limited Liverpool to potshots. First it was Mohamed Salah missing two shots from awkward angles; then it was Dominik Szoboszlai firing wide from distance, then into the grateful grasp of Alex McCarthy at his near post. Curtis Jones would try the same from distance, with an eerily similar result.
Everything asked of Southampton’s backup keeper – in the side only thanks to Aaron Ramsdale’s medium-term injury – he had an answer for. Every Liverpool shot, every cross, every loose ball, he was there. That was until he was asked to do something with which he was much less comfortable.
Come the half-hour mark, he’d just made a simple enough save to deny a weak effort from Conor Bradley. Two Liverpool men surrounded Mateus Fernandes on the edge of the area. McCarthy had to clear it, but he chose not to. Instead, he played it to his midfielder, who unsurprisingly had the ball nicked off him immediately.
That was the first mistake. When Liverpool squandered the gift and the ball fell to Flynn Downes, it was he who had the chance to clear his lines. But again, no. His attempted clearance was much too soft, hit straight into the path of Szoboszlai in disbelief at his luck. With more than enough space and time to work with, he curled a strike off the inside of the post, well out of the reach of a forlorn McCarthy.
Embed from Getty ImagesThis was when Liverpool were surely going to run away with it. In front and experts at maintaining it – they’d won every game in which they’d scored first up to this point – Southampton would’ve been forgiven for falling out of the game.
But they didn’t. Downes immediately tried to atone for his error with a strike in the box which Caoimhin Kelleher did tremendously well to save. Following this was 15 minutes of glorious chaos.
In the 40th minute, Tyler Dibling drove into the box. Andrew Robertson closed him town a tad too slowly, dived in and took him out. It was a foul; the defender knew he couldn’t argue with that.
What he could argue with was Sam Barrott’s decision to point to the spot; the contact had started outside the box and finished on its line. VAR spent a minute looking at it, decided the foul was within the threshold and the penalty decision stood.
Adam Armstrong was tasked with levelling proceedings, Cameron Archer’s missed penalty against Manchester United still fresh enough in the memory to give him some doubt. When he took the penalty, it looked like they’d miss again; it wasn’t in the corner, it was a comfortable height, and Kelleher met it. But he could only push it back into the box, where Armstrong was on his toes and just about able to tap it underneath the keeper to finally get his goal.
Embed from Getty ImagesIt was a bizarre first half. Liverpool were the better side as a unit, but all the individual quality came from Saints; Dibling was the star of the half, and big striker Paul Onuachu briefly turned into Zinedine Zidane at the end to dribble past no fewer than four Liverpool players in his own half. Come the second, it wasn’t clear where the game would go.
Perhaps it should’ve been clear, though. Arne Slot’s Liverpool had scored 11 of their first 13 league goals in the second half. They’d lost their lead, but that wouldn’t be the case for long.
Things would get worse before they got better for them, though. 56 minutes in, Southampton defended a corner well and set off for the counter attack. Dibling, tight to the byline, looked up and sprayed a tremendous ball to an onrushing Armstrong. His touch wasn’t great, but three Liverpool defenders crowded him and Fernandes had also kept his run going. He turned, slipped one pass into the area, and the Brazilian had all the space in the world to slip the ball past a static Kelleher.
Embed from Getty ImagesThis wasn’t supposed to happen. Southampton, the worst team in the Premier League, were not supposed to beat the side at the very top. In the end, of course, they didn’t – and once more, they only had themselves to blame.
Liverpool turned things up a notch. Luis Díaz’s introduction in the 62nd minute sparked life into their attack, and he might’ve scored with his first touch had he made contact with Darwin Núñez’s squared ball into the six-yard box. Only two minutes later, that missed chance would be forgotten.
Southampton had generally been quite good at dealing with Liverpool so far; what they hadn’t been so good at was dealing with themselves.
When Salah equalised, the hosts had only themselves to blame; Ryan Gravenberch played the Egyptian in behind, and McCarthy came out to meet him. He got it all wrong, showing him all of the goal, and watching in dismay as the ball was tapped into an all-but empty net. Southampton had had a famous win snatched from their grasp; it wouldn’t be long until they’d lose their point, too.
Embed from Getty ImagesOnce more, they had only themselves to blame. On 82 minutes, Salah dinked a ball into the area towards Robertson. In a panic to prevent the pass from reaching him, substitute Yukinari Sugawara moved to intervene – and misjudged it entirely. The ball bounced up onto his outstretched arm, with Liverpool’s claims for a penalty immediately accepted by the referee.
And that was that. Giving Mohamed Salah a penalty is like giving a tax evader a villa in the Caymen Islands: there’s only ever going to be one outcome. When the ball nestled into the top left corner, nobody was surprised.
He had a brace, and he could’ve made it a hat-trick too, smashing a volley onto the post in the 88th minute.
It didn’t matter, though. Liverpool had won, but really, it was Southampton who had beaten themselves.
The lineups
SOU: McCarthy; Fraser, Stephens, Harwood-Bellis, Walker-Peters; Fernandes, Lallana, Downes, Dibling; Armstrong, Onuachu
LIV: Kelleher; Robertson, Van Dijk, Konaté, Bradley; Gravenberch, Jones; Gakpo, Szoboszlai, Salah; Núñez