Salah seals comeback win for Liverpool against Southampton to stretch lead

There was much to encourage and concern Arne Slot – and Paris Saint-Germain for that matter – as the Liverpool head coach looked down from the Anfield directors’ box on another victorious step towards the Premier League title. The leaders toiled against Southampton until a triple half-time substitution ignited the spark that resulted in a 16-point lead at the summit. PSG may not be so forgiving.

Two Mohamed Salah penalties secured Liverpool victory after Darwin Núñez had cancelled out Will Smallbone’s opener for the Ivan Juric’s struggling side. The result had appeared a forgone conclusion before kick off, it ended up one too, yet this was a fight for Liverpool as they geared up for Tuesday’s Champions League return against Luis Enrique’s side.

Slot had labelled Southampton’s visit as the first of three finals in an attempt to rouse Liverpool’s players and fans into another important step towards the title. He received nothing of the kind in the first half. The league leaders were lethargic, sloppy and predictable. The league’s bottom club grew in confidence and menace after surviving an early spell of pressure in which Curtis Jones had a shot blocked and dragged another wide.

For a team cut adrift at the foot of the table, Southampton’s defensive industry was hugely impressive. Bodies were repeatedly put on the line to block Liverpool attempts and even the loss of the captain Jan Bednarek after a clash of heads with Ryan Manning caused minimal disruption before the break. Tyler Dibling, Mateus Fernandes and Kamaldeen Sulemana gradually added composure on the ball to the visiting performance to leave Slot looking worried in the directors’ box as he served the final game of his touchline ban.

The Liverpool head coach had his head in his hands when a calamitous mix-up gifted Southampton the lead in first-half stoppage time. That Virgil van Dijk and the hero of Paris, Alisson, were involved heightened the sense of unease inside Anfield. The Liverpool captain attempted to shepherd a Manning throw-in back to his goalkeeper but Alisson, thrown off balance by a Fernandes challenge, failed to collect. The ball squirmed loose to Smallbone who squeezed a low shot through the Brazilian’s legs and in from a tight angle.

Mohamed Salah scores one of his two penalties for Liverpool. Photograph: Liverpool FC/Getty Images

Liverpool could have been in a worse position before the half-time whistle blew. The video assistant referee checked a possible red card offence by Núñez, who was booked for taking a swipe at Kyle Walker-Peters as the full-back surged past him. Núñez made no attempt to play the ball and was booked by new Premier League referee Lewis Smith. VAR stuck with the on-field decision.

A triple substitution at the interval by Slot said everything about Liverpool’s performance to that point. In truth, his selection appeared strange from the start with only Andy Robertson, Alexis Mac Allister and Diogo Jota rested from the team that started at Parc des Princes on Wednesday. There was no reward of a first league start of the season for Harvey Elliott, although he was among the second-half replacements for Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Kostas Tsimikas. The impact was immediate.

Elliott almost repeated his performance against PSG by scoring within seconds of his arrival. Aaron Ramsdale, who saved well from Trent Alexander-Arnold but was relatively untroubled in the first half, turned the 21-year-old’s angled drive wide of the far post. There was a sharpness and aggression to Liverpool that had been absent prior to the changes. Now Slot witnessed the intensity he had called for.

Liverpool swiftly drew level thanks, almost inevitably from a Southampton perspective, to Núñez. The move was instigated by one of the half-time substitutes, Robertson, who found Luis Díaz hugging the left touchline. Díaz darted past Walker-Peters to the by-line and centred for the Uruguay international to beat Armel Bella-Kotchap to the cross and convert at the near post.

The game was turned completely on its head three minutes later when Núñez went down under a challenge from Smallbone as Southampton struggled to clear following a Ramsdale save from Díaz. Smith immediately pointed to the spot, VAR backed his decision, and Salah swept an unstoppable penalty into Ramsdale’s right hand corner. The 242^nd goal of Salah’s Liverpool career moved him to outright third in the club’s all-time goalscorers’ list.

Another soft penalty, conceded by the substitute Yukinari Sugawara who was adjudged to have handled in a tussle with Díaz, presented Salah with an opportunity to go joint-fifth on the all-time Premier League scorers’ chart alongside Sergio Agüero with 184. It was duly, emphatically drilled into Ramsdale’s top left corner.