O'Shea on the mark for Burnley in Anfield defeat

Republic of Ireland international Dara O'Shea was on the mark for Burnley in their 3-1 defeat to Liverpool that saw the Reds return to the top of the Premier League table.

Manchester City had overtaken their north-west rivals to reach the summit for the first time since November with victory in the lunchtime kick-off against Everton, but in front of a record league crowd at Anfield, Jurgen Klopp’s side recovered from O’Shea’s equaliser to pass another test of their stretched resources.

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And while the three points re-established their two-point advantage the less-than-convincing nature of victory against the league's next-bottom side was not quite befitting the occasion of Liverpool's biggest league crowd of 60,725 after the full opening of the Anfield Road stand.

For a time it appeared the hosts, who due to flu in the camp were without goalkeeper Alisson Becker and Joe Gomez, were still suffering a hangover from the defeat at Arsenal last week.

It took the familiar right boot of Trent Alexander-Arnold, setting a new mark of 58 for Premier League assists by a defender, and the equally reliable head of Diogo Jota to get them out of first gear but even then it was far from a return to normality.

The sloppy concession of an equaliser to O'Shea - scoring past compatriot Caoimhin Kelleher - on the stroke of half-time posed further problems as did the withdrawal of Alexander-Arnold, only recently returned from a knee injury.

But it was the England international's replacement Harvey Elliott who set up goals for Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez to ease the pressure.

However, had on-loan Chelsea forward David Fofana been as clinical as he was scoring twice last weekend then not only would Liverpool still be looking up at