Mohamed Salah fires Liverpool to victory to end Napoli’s unbeaten run

"For the second time in four days, an unbeaten run ended at Anfield. This time, Liverpool could celebrate it. They had gone 29 league games without defeat on their own turf before Leeds triumphed on Saturday.

Napoli had not lost anywhere, to anyone, since Empoli in April, until Darwin Nunez rose highest to meet Kostas Tsimikas’ corner, Alex Meret made a desperate attempt to stop his header from crossing the line and Mohamed Salah made sure. In a near action-replay, Meret made a second stunning save from Virgil van Dijk’s header and Nunez applied the final touch on the line."

And so a group that began with the seismic shock of their worst performance under Jurgen Klopp ended with a fifth straight win for Liverpool. They finished it level on points with Napoli, even if that tally can feel deceptive, so superior were Luciano Spalletti’s side in the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

That was a match that may be remembered for years, perhaps used to illustrate the fall of one great team and the rise of another.

For Spalletti’s cavaliers, the statement performance came on their own turf, the anticlimactic end to a group when they had scored 20 goals occurring when they drew a blank in defeat at Anfield. If the points were shared in the pool stage, the final verdict may be that September’s 4-1 assumes a greater symbolic significance, if this becomes a historic season for Napoli or if Klopp’s Liverpool are definitively deemed in decline. The practical element was that it in effect decided the group, with both teams taking maximum points against Ajax and Rangers.

But, while they have lost to teams who kicked off in the bottom two places in the Premier League, Liverpool have beaten perhaps the two finest sides in Europe this season, in Manchester City and Napoli. Salah has scored in both and his seventh goal in five European games makes him the Champions League’s top scorer. His own continental campaign began ignominiously and ineffectually in Naples but has improved dramatically since then.

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He ensured Liverpool ended Napoli’s run of 13 straight victories and illustrated how hard it is to get the maximum 18 points in a group, which they did last season. Nevertheless, it took a series of replays to earn them a clean sheet. They showed a semblance of solidity, if not the fluency they used to exhibit. Yet a failure to win the group, likely ever since their traumatic trip to Italy, could result in a last-16 meeting with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain.

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It would have taken a still more remarkable result to leapfrog Napoli. Rewind three years and Liverpool needed a four-goal victory against Barcelona and got one, even without the injured Salah and Roberto Firmino. Replicating that scoreline against Napoli, even with the Egyptian and the Brazilian in the forward line, always seemed far-fetched. This felt more of a dead rubber until Van Dijk and Salah, Liverpool’s two best players on the night, exerted a decisive impact.

With Anfield subdued, much of the entertainment stemmed from one of the season’s breakout stars. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia had dominated his duel with Trent Alexander-Arnold at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona and, while the rematch was not as one-sided, the Georgian showed his elusiveness again, along with his prowess as a thrillingly direct dribbler.

Kvaratskhelia set up Tanguy Ndombele when he had a shot saved, while his own deflected shot was held by Alisson. He was the provider when Napoli thought they had scored. Leo Ostigard headed in Kvaratskhelia’s free-kick but, after an interminable delay, VAR adjudged the former Stoke and Coventry defender offside, an errant arm seemingly denying him.

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But Spalletti spared Liverpool a reunion with Piotr Zielinski, another of their tormentors eight weeks earlier, by benching the Pole until the last few minutes. The third architect of that demolition job, Victor Osimhen, was quieter than in Naples. It helped that Ibrahima Konate made just his second start of the season, lending pace and authority, whereas Joe Gomez had endured a torrid time in Naples. Van Dijk, meanwhile, produced one of his most authoritative displays of the season.

The main blot on Liverpool’s night was the loss of James Milner, one of their few players who had not been injured this season. The overworked Harvey Elliott, who Klopp had hoped to rest, came on. But few shoulder a bigger burden than Salah and he was Liverpool’s brightest player.

"Meret parried a Thiago shot when he was teed up by the winger; the goalkeeper made a terrific save when Salah seemed certain to score, though he was then flagged offside. The Egyptian reacted swiftly to improvise a volley at Meret before his persistence eventually paid off. Nunez capped his cameo by adding a second and, after 21 games, 19 wins and six months, finally Napoli had lost.