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\n Virgil van Dijk scores for Liverpool. Jon Super \/ Associated Press<\/p>\n
\n
LAST UPDATE
\n |
\n 14 hrs ago\n <\/p>\n
Liverpool 5
\nWest Ham 2<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
LIVERPOOL\u2019S TRANSFORMATION from set-piece failures to the top-flight\u2019s in-form side underpinned a 5-2 win over West Ham which maintained their bid for Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n
Hugo Ekitike, Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister scored from first-half corners, becoming only the second team in the competition\u2019s history after Manchester United in 2016 to do so.<\/p>\n
Cody Gakpo scored his first league goal in eight matches and the nerves were eased when Axel Disasi turned in Jeremie Frimpong\u2019s cross after Tomas Soucek and Taty Castellanos had made things a little less comfortable.<\/p>\n
Liverpool moved level with fourth-placed Manchester United having reduced their goal difference disadvantage to one goal, while blowing a hole in the Hammers\u2019 recent revival after taking 11 points from 18.<\/p>\n
\n Virgil van Dijk scores for Liverpool. Jon Super \/ Associated Press<\/p>\n
Jon Super \/ Associated Press \/ Associated Press\n<\/p>\n
At the turn of the year Arne Slot\u2019s side had the worst record in terms of set-piece balance \u2013 the difference between the number scored and conceded \u2013 leading to sacking of coach Aaron Briggs.<\/p>\n
Since New Year\u2019s Day they have scored nine and conceded three, the best form of any top-flight team in that period.<\/p>\n
Slot had argued part of their struggles in the first half of the season had just been down to bad luck but that appears to have changed, especially as their xG for the opening 45 minutes was just 0.7.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After their added-time winner at Nottingham Forest last weekend it took Liverpool just five minutes to make the breakthrough.<\/p>\n
West Ham, who have now won just once in 59 visits to Anfield, twice failed to clear a corner, and Ryan Gravenberch squared for Ekitike to fire through the legs of Konstantinos Mavropanos with a slight deflection to beat Mads Hermansen.<\/p>\n
It was the France international\u2019s 16th goal of the season and 11th in the league, with only Erling Haaland, Igor Thiago and Antoine Semenyo scoring more.<\/p>\n
West Ham\u2019s response saw Mavropanos fire wildly over from six yards and Crysencio Summerville almost spring a counter-attack goal from another Liverpool corner, with Mac Allister eventually blocking Aaron Wan Bissaka\u2019s shot.<\/p>\n
Gravenberch forced Hermansen into a low save before Van Dijk headed in Dominik Szoboszlai\u2019s inswinging corner \u2013 a tactic they had barely used in the first half of the season \u2013 for his third in eight games and fifth of the campaign to equal last year\u2019s tally.<\/p>\n
Only John Terry (41) has more Premier League goals by a central defender, excluding penalties, than the Netherlands captain (28).<\/p>\n
A comedy of errors followed as Summerville tackled one of his own players as he tried to shoot and then Alisson Becker passed the ball straight to Jarrod Bowen with the goalkeeper having to pounce on the rebound.<\/p>\n
Gravenberch then did the same but the winger\u2019s touch took him too wide, with Alisson saving at his near post from Soucek as West Ham threatened again.<\/p>\n
When Ekitike guided Salah\u2019s far-post corner back for Mac Allister to volley home the game appeared over with Hammers boss Nuno Espirito Santo despondently sat rewatching the goal on a monitor in the dugout.<\/p>\n
But four minutes into the second half Soucek converted Malick Diouf\u2019s low cross after Ibrahima Konate could only flick on Bowen\u2019s cross and Gravenberch failed to track the run of the West Ham midfielder.<\/p>\n
Gakpo sliced wide a volley from six yards before scoring with a much better effort, cutting in on the angle and shooting inside the far post, and although Castellanos raised the visitors\u2019 hopes with 15 minutes to go, Disasi\u2019s own goal ended them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAST UPDATE | 14 hrs ago Liverpool 5 West Ham 2 \u00a0 LIVERPOOL\u2019S TRANSFORMATION from set-piece failures to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[150062,61,60,1101,3405,112,150063,139641],"class_list":["post-323118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-champions-league-race","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liverpool","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-turning-the-corner","tag-west-ham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}