This will not rank alongside Liverpool’s most memorable wins of the season. Some of their victories have been devastating displays of attacking football, the sort that make you glad to be a fan. This 3-0 victory against a desperate Stoke City side was not much more than efficient, earned by goals from Sadio Mané and a brace from the substitute Mohamed Salah, but it might end up being among their most satisfying three points.
“It was well deserved, but it was hard work,” said Jürgen Klopp after the game, which might be a little charitable to their opponents, who hardly presented the most fearsome and doughty foes. But it will nonetheless be encouraging for Liverpoolthat they looked pretty comfortable throughout against a team that set out to frustrate them.
It could have been different had the referee Martin Atkinson sent off Simon Mignolet in the first half, though. Mignolet rushed out of his goal and hacked down Mame Biram Diouf as the forward tried to round the keeper just outside the area but, as the whole stadium prepared themselves for the sight of a red card, only a yellow emerged.
Aside from those chances Liverpool were broadly in control, not necessarily because of their own brilliance (afterwards Klopp said they should have done more with the ball and been tighter at the back), but more due to Stoke’s inadequacies.
With 13 minutes remaining, Liverpool scored again. Mané made Ryan Shawcross look foolish on the right side of the area, zipping around him like a speedboat circling an oil tanker, before clipping a cross to the substitute Salah, who set himself perfectly and hammered an unstoppable volley into the roof of the net.
It was 3-0 a few minutes later. More deeply questionable defending saw Erik Pieters woefully misjudge a header back to Grant, then Salah leapt on the ball and tucked it home with the confidence of a man in the form of his life. Which, as it happens, he is.
All that was left to do was for Hughes to bring on Charlie Adam, as if to remind Liverpool that their team have not always been about lightning fast, dynamic young colts. The away fans spent the remainder of the game merrily singing Christmas songs and suggesting that relegation is on the cards for Stoke. On this evidence, they might be right.
Squall Lionheart 