Defeating Chelsea, Liverpool reclaims top spot from Man City

Liverpool's seventh consecutive win in all competitions was largely down to star man Salah, who opened the scoring from a penalty kick and then set up Curtis Jones to seal the 2-1 result. Three crucial points against Chelsea helped Arne Slot's men reclaim the top spot from Man City after a few hours of being knocked off the top spot.

Liverpool's victory was not easy, as Chelsea were unbeaten in seven games in all competitions before visiting Anfield. The visitors also had 12 shots in the game, four more than the hosts. However, Liverpool were better at taking their chances, and they created more dangerous situations, with an expected goals of 1.63-0.93.

The match would have been much easier for Liverpool, if the referee had been more lenient with the situation in the sixth minute. From Salah's long pass, Diogo Jota broke through from midfield, but was pulled down by Chelsea's last defender, Tosin Adarabioyo. Referee John Brooks only gave Adarabioyo a yellow card, and VAR Michael Oliver did not intervene in the situation.

A day earlier, in Bournemouth's match against Arsenal, visiting defender William Saliba also pulled down Evanilson in a similar situation. At that time, VAR Jarred Gillett intervened to convince referee Rob Jones to give Saliba a red card instead of a yellow. These two controversial situations coincidentally benefited Man City in the title race with Arsenal and Liverpool.

Referee Brooks also caused controversy when he did not award a penalty to Chelsea when Jadon Sancho was stepped on by Trent Alexander-Arnold in the Liverpool penalty area. Before that, he also ignored the situation when Levi Colwill pushed Salah down in the Chelsea penalty area.

However, Brooks' decision to award a penalty to Liverpool in the 27th minute was not without controversy, as Colwill kicked Jones in the Chelsea penalty area. Salah did not miss the opportunity to shoot the penalty hard to the right, in the opposite direction of goalkeeper Robert Sanchez.

Chelsea equalised early in the second half, when midfielder Moises Caicedo passed the ball to Nicolas Jackson, who broke through and fired low into the near post. The linesman flagged Jackson offside, but VAR took a long time before awarding the goal to the visitors.

However, after just three minutes, Liverpool regained the lead when Salah crossed the ball from the right for Jones to break the offside trap, dive in, stretch and shoot past goalkeeper Sanchez into the net. Like Salah, Jones had a hand in both Liverpool goals in the match, and he celebrated by putting his thumb in his mouth, a gesture he had made for his daughter, who had been born a week earlier.

Apart from the inexplicable defeat to Nottingham Forest, Liverpool have won all 10 matches in all competitions. But Slot's men are preparing to face two more tough opponents away from home, Leipzig in the Champions League on the evening of October 23 and Arsenal in the Premier League four days later.