Salah beats Southampton with a double and extends Liverpool's lead to eight points | first division

For a moment, Mohamed Salah's shirt blew away in the wind, resting somewhere on the edge of the Southampton box. He had achieved it on the way to celebrating his second goal, from a penalty, to open an eight-point lead at the top of the standings. first divisionin front of the visiting Liverpool fans going crazy in a pocket of this stadium. Then Luis Díaz recovered Salah's number 11.

At first glance, at the beginning there was a mismatch between the teams at the top and bottom of the division, but Liverpoolwhich opened the scoring thanks to Dominik Szoboszlai, was followed by goals from Adam Armstrong and Mateus Fernandes. But Salah equalized from open play, scored from a penalty and then hit a post late on to leave Arne Slot's team admiring the view from above.

There were many positives for Russell Martin, but in the end there was another disheartening loss. He has been struggling to find a winning formula to avoid an immediate return to the Championship and made five changes, giving 6ft 7in striker Paul Onuachu his first league start in 18 months, since the day the Saints were relegated last year. last, while Ryan Fraser was given the difficult task of chaining Salah at left back. Alex McCarthy replaced the injured Aaron Ramsdale in goal. The accusation leveled against Martin since he began life on the MK Dons bench in League One has been his teams' tendency to exaggerate and the antics, if not comical, of Liverpool's goal on the half hour only served to add another trunk to fury. fire of debate.

McCarthy rolled the ball towards Mateus Fernandes and pointed up, seemingly disregarding the traffic on the midfielder's radar. Fernandes, harassed by Curtis Jones, passed the ball to Flynn Downes, who was standing on the Saints' goal line. Downes panicked in possession and rushed to half-clear straight at Szoboszlai, who took a touch to compose himself before producing a majestic finish. Martin shook his head and grimaced after the Hungarian caressed his infallible left-footed shot that hit the post. Downes made amends almost immediately, drawing a good save from Caoimhín Kelleher.

Onuachu had been a handful, earning oldis from the home fans, and Liverpool will have welcomed his premature exit with a hamstring problem after colliding with Cody Gakpo six minutes into the second half. The only problem for Liverpool was that Southampton He still had Tyler Dibling on the field. The 18-year-old, who made his England Under-21 debut last week, has been the Saints' beacon of light over a grueling few months. He stood out on his Premier League debut against Manchester United in September, his direct run wreaking havoc and winning a penalty which Cameron Archer failed to convert. Dibling won another penalty here, advancing after taking advantage of a rare error from Virgil van Dijk and receiving a crunch from Andy Robertson and the referee, Samuel Barrott, pointed to the spot. After video assistant referee Michael Oliver, wearing a hoodie at Stockley Park, concluded the foul occurred on the edge of the 18-yard box, Armstrong stepped forward. His penalty was bad, allowing Kelleher to dive to repel his attempt, but the striker sent the rebound between the goalkeeper's legs.

Dibling was at the heart of every Saints attack and was the catalyst for the magnificent counter-attack which culminated in Kelleher knocking the ball out of his net 11 minutes after the break. A play that inadvertently began with McCarthy losing the ball on a Liverpool corner ended with Fernandes neatly finishing off an Armstrong cross. Fraser had released Dibling, who on the touchline controlled himself exquisitely to eliminate Szoboszlai. Dibling then released Armstrong, who brought three dark green shirts with him, and then kept his cool to track down Fernandes, who calmly did the rest.

Southampton were enterprising in attack, but never looked secure in defence. Liverpool's draw was another disgusting one from Martin's point of view. Ryan Gravenberch sent a routine pass down the right channel over Kyle Walker-Peters and McCarthy raced out of his goal to reach it. By the time McCarthy realized it might not have been the best move, it was too late as Salah pushed the ball past him and into an open net with his first touch. McCarthy helped Southampton survive some tougher spells, but then substitute Yuki Sugawara gave the visitors another chance to attack, handling a Salah cross. The man himself buried the penalty.