Virgil van Dijk and Cody Gakpo scored two minutes aside within the second half to open the floodgates as an injury-bitten Liverpool opened some area on the high of the Premier League with a 4-1 comeback victory over Luton Town at Anfield on Wednesday.
Juergen Klopp’s group have 60 factors after 26 video games, 4 factors above Manchester City and 5 away from Arsenal, though each chasing groups have a recreation in hand. Luton Town remained in 18th.
“Exceptional game,” Klopp stated. “I liked lots of the first half, but I saw that the boys and crowd didn’t like it as much.
“I advised the boys it was a high recreation and we now have to be calmer in decisive moments, then there have been fireworks and great objectives — incredible evening and it’s simply actually good.”
Luton’s Chiedozie Ogbene shocked the Anfield faithful with a goal in the 12th minute and Liverpool, who were missing several key players including Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez, trailed at halftime of a home league game for the first time this season.
“We made them indignant, did not we?” said Luton manager Rob Edwards. “The second half we simply noticed Anfield, full-throttle. We noticed Liverpool. They suffocated us and their followers have been wonderful.”
Liverpool’s patched up side came out after the break in top gear. Van Dijk scored in the 56th minute, shaking off a defender to head in a corner from Alexis Mac Allister and Gakpo headed in what Klopp called “a grenade” from Mac Allister’s pinpoint cross two minutes later.
Luis Diaz and Harvey Elliott added to Liverpool’s lead in the 71st and 90th minutes.
“We are a resilient group and we wish to struggle for each other. It’s a busy season,” Elliott told Sky Sports. “For the lads which might be injured we want them nicely and we wish to come again shortly.”
The hosts had 29 shots, 13 of them on target, and a Liverpool goal felt inevitable as Luton keeper Thomas Kaminski made a string of big saves from shots by Conor Bradley, Gakpo and Van Dijk within a few minutes before Van Dijk finally connected.
“The ultimate bit wasn’t actually there within the first half,” Elliott said. “But soccer is a recreation of two halves and within the second half we confirmed it. We needed to be rather a lot higher than we have been within the first half.”
Liverpool have been hit by current accidents — horrible timing with the League Cup ultimate towards Chelsea looming on Sunday and amid a decent title race. Klopp stated Salah, who simply returned from a hamstring harm, was not match to play on Wednesday whereas Nunez, Diogo Jota and Curtis Jones have been all sidelined with accidents they picked up final weekend towards Brentford.
The leaders have been already lacking goalkeeper Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai and Thiago Alcantara amongst others.
The battle to keep away from relegation can be fierce with Luton stage on factors with Seventeenth-placed Everton.
Source web site: www.hindustantimes.com
