John Aldridge reflects on Liverpool’s win over Man City and the Premier League title-race in the first half of his weekly ECHO column
It was the perfect weekend for Liverpool, especially with Arsenal losing. Winning away at Man City, keeping a clean sheet too, it doesn’t get much better.
We looked at the Villa game as two points dropped rather than one point gained maybe, as we had enough chances to win it. But to go to Man City and get three points, I was hoping to get four points from these two games but that would have been by winning at Villa and drawing at City
It worked out the other way round, which is even better to be honest. If you’re going to pick where you pick your points up, then City away is right at the top of the list.
It was a great win and really nice to win there. I know City were a little bit under strength, we’ve got to take that into consideration, but you can only beat what is in front of you.
Slot has unleashed Szoboszlai
I’m really enjoying seeing Mohamed Salah forge more and more of a relationship with Dominik Szoboszlai on the pitch. It’s been working all through the season, but it has come to the forefront in recent weeks
You look at the assists and the goals, he’s getting forward more and has really been let off the leash. They are linking up really well
The first great signs of it were probably in Tottenham away, that mad game before Christmas where we battered them, Salah scored two and set up two, and Szoboszlai got a goal and assist as well.
He’s getting into those areas on the right-hand side and the two of them work well together, they’re on the same wavelength.
You’ve got to give credit to Arne Slot, he’s seen that he’s got that in his locker, Szoboszlai, and he’s unleashed him.
You’ve got to get goals from midfield, you’ve got to share them around. We said that earlier in the season in the column
In our Liverpool team when I was playing, Steve McMahon got double figures. Ronnie Whelan would show up as well, and the lads outwide would get double figures easily.
It does help you and can be crucial in a title-race, without a shadow of a doubt.
Title race is not over yet
We’ve now got seven of our remaining 11 games at home. That’s massive. The away games left are all difficult, but they don’t come more difficult than Man City away
So every team we play, we’re perfectly capable of beating them. Fulham, Leicester, Chelsea, Brighton – we’re capable of beating them.
But what we’ve got to do is make sure we look after our home games, none more so than the next one which is Newcastle on Wednesday.
If we win all our home games, then there is no way back for Arsenal. It is over if we win all our home games.
It’s not over yet. We’ve still got Arsenal at home. They could win that and it could be back on for them a little bit. So we can’t afford to let that happen
We have to look after our home games, make sure we beat Newcastle then look ahead to the next one against Southampton and so on