Mohamed Salah sinks Fulham and keeps Liverpool in touch with top four

It was all rather tame compared to the drama and fury of Liverpool’s last home triumph but Jürgen Klopp may have welcomed the serenity of Fulham’s visit to Anfield. A fifth Premier League win in succession, Liverpool’s best run of the season, maintained his team’s pursuit of European football and brought yet another milestone in the outstanding Anfield career of Mohamed Salah.

Salah’s decisive first half penalty, awarded after a soft foul by Issa Diop on Darwin Núñez, ensured the Eygpt international became only the third player in Liverpool’s history to score in eight consecutive home matches. Salah’s latest strike took him to outright fifth on the club’s all-time league goalscorers’ list and just one behind Steven Gerrard’s tally of 186 in all competitions for Liverpool. He also requires only one more to hit the 30 goal mark for the fourth season out of seven as a Liverpool player.

There was a nervous finale as Carlos Vinícius and Bobby Decordova-Reid went close for the visitors, who defended admirably but for Diop’s careless lapse shortly before the break.

Salah, Núñez and Luis Díaz would have been most people’s idea of Liverpool’s first choice forward line at the start of the season, and an enticing prospect too, but it has remained little more than an idea due to a serious knee injury sustained by the Colombia international and a difficult debut campaign for the Uruguay striker. The trio started together for only the fifth time against Fulham and showed both flashes of rich promise as a combination as well as understandable rust.

Liverpool dominated possession from the off but the visitors were a threat on the counterattack throughout the first half, passing their way bravely through midfield and prospering down