Mohamed Salah scored his first Premier League goal since announcing his summer departure as Liverpool produced a controlled 2-0 victory over Fulham at Anfield on Saturday, providing beleaguered manager Arne Slot with some much-needed breathing space heading into the Champions League.
The atmosphere inside the stadium was muted, partly due to a protest against ticket price increases that saw the usual flags and banners absent from the Kop, and partly because Liverpool’s form this year has done little to inspire the kind of collective confidence that Anfield is famous for generating.
The opening goal came from an unlikely source. Seventeen-year-old Rio Ngumoha, who had not scored since his dramatic winner at Newcastle in August, converted a superb team move on 36 minutes after Florian Wirtz’s driving run set the platform.
Ngumoha wrong-footed Timothy Castagne before curling low into the far corner, a finish that belied both his age and the pressure of the occasion. His involvement in the second goal was equally significant as he picked out Cody Gakpo, who laid off to Salah four minutes later for a composed clip across goal.
For Salah, it was only his sixth Premier League goal of the season — a dramatic fall from the 29 he contributed in last year’s title-winning campaign under a different manager and a very different mood at the club. His announcement that he will leave at the end of the season has hung heavily over Anfield ever since, and his goal here carried the weight of a man desperate to leave on terms that still mean something.
Liverpool sit fifth with 49 points, fighting to secure a Champions League place through the league with PSG awaiting in the European quarter-final second leg on Tuesday. Slot has won just two of his previous eight matches in all competitions, and the pressure on the Dutchman is tangible. Fulham created little of note, with Alex Iwobi’s 29th-minute effort the closest the visitors came, and the game was effectively over before half-time. Three points does not make the storm pass but it buys Liverpool time they badly needed.
