4 November 28, 2021The Sunday Times
Football Premier League
F
orget the “new normal”. For
Jürgen Klopp and his Liver-
pool team, life in this post-
lockdown season is all about
the “old normal”, as Diogo
Jota ably demonstrated by
helping himself to two of his
team’s four goals.
Hard as they worked, and impress-
ive as they were in spells, it is hard to
imagine a more routine win for Klopp,
who saw his team match a 94-year-old
record set by Sunderland, the last top-
flight club to compile a run of 17 con-
secutive games in league and cup in
which they scored two or more.
At the start of January, Southamp-
ton beat Liverpool on the south coast,Ian Whittell
LIVERPOOL
Jota 2, 32, Alcântara 37, Van Dijk 52 4SOUTHAMPTON
0Alcântara, who
scored on Wednesday
in the Champions
League, fires home
again at Anfield, this
time with his left footSIMON STACPOOLEBut the final whistle blew with no
player in the Premier League having
scored more than Salah’s 11 league
goals this term or, for that matter,
Mané or Jota’s seven apiece. Liver-
pool’s record of 39 goals in the open-
ing 13 games is their best scoring start
to a top-flight campaign.
“Diogo is an exceptional player, an
exceptional boy,” Klopp said. “He’s
been a perfect signing and has every-
thing you need to be in a Liverpool
squad. He has technical skills, physi-
cal skills and he’s very smart and can
learn all the tactical stuff quickly.”
Southampton faced a tall order
inside two minutes and were all but
out of the contest by the half-hour
when Jota had already scored twice.
By the time he opened the scoring,
111 seconds in, Tino Livramento had
already done well to block a shot from
him, but there was to be no reprieve
from the forward’s next chance.
Mané and Salah worked well to
send Andy Robertson to the bylinesparking the beginning of a cata-
strophic run for an injury-hit squad in
which they lost eight of 12 Premier
League games, six of those at Anfield.
Ten months on, as Liverpool fans
shouted “shoot” every time one of
their defenders ventured over the
halfway line, it was hard to imagine a
more dramatic transformation.
This is a Liverpool squad that might
be even deeper than the one that
coasted to the 2019-20 title, with one
of the newcomers, Thiago Alcântara,
helping himself to Liverpool’s third.
And, of course, Liverpool’s “big
three” forward line is now a big four.
Jota offers a different set of skills to
Roberto Firmino, injured at the
moment, but his proficiency in front
of goal is certainly superior.
Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané
will also have left this game wonder-
ing how they did not join in the goal-
scoring fun — even the central
defender Virgil van Dijk managed to
do so with his team’s last goal.Jota keeps
Liverpool
bandwagon
rolling on