‘A scouser in our team’, but which one? Two goals in three first-half minutes, and a wonderful strike from a free-kick routine in the second half, from our two scousers, claimed all three points for a resurgent Liverpool. With Leicester now looking doomed to Championship football next season, it was Curtis Jones with a brace, and Trent Alexander Arnold, who kept their team’s growing hopes of Champions League football alive.
After seeing out the opening half hour of a game in which Leicester already looked beaten, Liverpool made their superiority count, through Curtis Jones. Beginning to prove the doubters amongst us wrong, he despatched a back post pass from Mo Salah, across a forlorn Foxes goalkeeper with his left foot. The composed finish, almost a replica of his goal against Spurs, was however soon to be surpassed, and just three minutes later.
Receiving the ball with his back to goal, he turned and half-volleyed Salah’s pass, and in the process, all bit extinguished Leicester’s hopes of victory.
Whilst Jones is rightly receiving plaudits for recent performances, it was Trent Alexander Arnold who was conducting Liverpool’s orchestrated attacks. Continually probing, finding the space between the lines, and seemingly dissecting what little resistance Leicester displayed, at will, he was to garner his reward following the dubious awarding of a free-kick, following a foul on Henderson.
The free-kick routine, as Klopp said post-match, should have led to other goals this season, but on this occasion, our captain didn’t get in the way. Salah, with his third assist of the match, simply rolling the ball to Trent twenty yards from goal, whose perfectly struck curling right foot shot, sailed into the net. At which point, it was a question of how many more Liverpool would score. Salah, looking for his 20th league goal of the season, soon had a one-on-one with the goalkeeper. His glaring miss was only matched by a similar poor finish by Gapko in the first half.
The lesser-spotted Carvalho was given a run out in the final minutes, whilst Jota, Milner and Harvey Elliot, also made fleeting appearances. However, it was the travelling Kop, loudly serenading Bobby for a full ten minutes, that perhaps left the most lasting impression.
Whether we’ll see one final Anfield outing for the magical Brazilian, when Liverpool face Aston Villa on Saturday, will ultimately be determined by the need to take all three points for the eighth consecutive game, as much as it will be by his availability. Whatever the circumstances, there’ll barely be a dry eye in the house, when Roberto Firmino, a player who perhaps best encapsulates the Klopp era more than any other, says goodbye to his adoring fans.
