Salah's second-half strike turned an absorbing game in Liverpool's favor
Mohamed Salah breathed new life into Liverpool's season as his second-half strike earned the Reds a 1-0 victory over Manchester City in an absorbing contest at Anfield.
Jurgen Klopp's side still have work to do to catch up with their great rivals but at least they looked a match for City, no small achievement after a difficult start to the season. With Salah on song though, nothing is impossible.
Precious few chances came the way of either side in an intriguing first half, one where Erling Haaland headed too close to Alisson at one end whilst Andrew Robertson crashed over the bar after Ederson could only tip James Milner's cross into a dangerous area. After recent difficulties in the top flight, this match was a healthy reminder of how effective Liverpool can be against the best opposition and even in City's most dominant moments early on the hosts' goal was never under unbearable pressure.
It took until the 50th minute for this game to reach the standard of its forebearers. When these two do deliver, however, there is nothing like it, that thrilling cocktail of footballing excellence and occasionally baffling decision-making under pressure. The touchpaper moment had both, Mohamed Salah bursting away from a slipping Ruben Dias and into the box only to roll the ball wide of goal. Ederson had done magnificently to get a glove on the shot. He would have had no chance if Salah had squared to an unmarked Diogo Jota.
Seconds later City thought they were leading, Haaland having poked the ball away from Alisson for Phil Foden to thump into the net. However, the Norwegian's claiming of a chunk of Fabinho's shirt in the build-up meant Anthony Taylor was swiftly overturning his initial decision. This was breathless stuff and moments later it was Liverpool cursing their luck when Salah's gorgeous cross with the outside of his boot was flicked over by Jota.
The Egyptian was at the heart of the contest and it increasingly felt like one of he or Haaland would win this game for their respective sides. It would prove to be the former, taking down Alisson's long goal kick and spinning Joao Cancelo in one touch before this time beating Ederson.
Virgil van Dijk's brilliant clearing header denied Haaland an equalizer off Cancelo's cross soon after as the game rose to a crescendo. Klopp saw red after his indignant response to a perceived foul by Bernardo Silva on Salah before Darwin Nunez wasted a three-on-one chance after doing excellent work to close down Cancelo's pass. When he did make the right call to square the ball, his fellow substitute Trent Alexander-Arnold could not quite convert.
City were unable to punish those lapses in judgment and now find themselves four points off Arsenal, whose record as the only side to go unbeaten through a Premier League season will now endure for another 18 months, at the summit of the table.