Five-star Liverpool breeze past Toulouse

Liverpool seized control of Europa League Group E as they breezed to a 5-1 win over Toulouse at Anfield to go five points clear after three games.

Diogo Jota continued his love affair with Europe's second competition, scoring his eighth goal in seven appearances, and although Thijs Dallinga levelled for the visitors, Wataru Endo got off the mark in Liverpool colours and Darwin Nunez added another to put Jurgen Klopp’s men in charge before half-time.

FULL MATCH DETAILS

Nunez then hit the post of an open goal just after the hour, but Ryan Gravenberch tucked in the rebound and substitute Mohamed Salah added a fifth in stoppage time to leave Liverpool – three points off the top of the Premier League – looking strong on all fronts as they face an intense run of fixtures.

Klopp had promised to make "not too many" changes to his side following Saturday’s 2-0 win over Everton in the Merseyside derby, but there were only three survivors in the starting line-up – Jota, Gravenberch and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher was drafted in for his second Europa League appearance of the season, in place of regular stopper Alisson Becker.

Jota opened the scoring with only nine minutes gone. Joe Gomez prodded the ball forward to the Portugal international, who turned on the edge of the centre circle and ran at goal, holding off two opponents and skipping past Logan Costa before beating Guillaume Restes with a low shot.

Liverpool, dominant on the ball and winning the midfield battle, looked poised for a comfortable night, but Toulouse then gave their noisy travelling support a moment to savour, hitting their hosts on the break with quarter of an hour gone.

Aron Donnum turned on the halfway line to play in