Sadio Mané sinks West Ham and keeps up Liverpool’s title pursuit

It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t convincing and for Jürgen Klopp that really doesn’t matter. Liverpool made it 12 successive wins in all competitions with a slender victory over West Ham to keep the pressure firmly on Manchester City ahead of Sunday’s Manchester derby.

Liverpool’s 600th Premier League win owed as much to West Ham’s profligacy as Sadio Mané’s predatory instincts, the Senegal international deciding the outcome with a sharp first half finish before Pablo Fornals and Manuel Lanzini missed glorious chances to level. It is now 18 visits to Anfield without a win for David Moyes. His visible anguish as Lanzini skied over with only Alisson to beat was perfectly understandable.

West Ham’s hopes of becoming the first team to record a Premier League double over Klopp’s Liverpool receded before kick-off with Declan Rice absent through illness. Moyes paired Lanzini alongside Tomas Soucek and, with his team immediately over-run by Liverpool’s speed of thought and movement, soon switched to a four-man midfield to stem the tide. The title contenders should have been ahead before the readjustment.

Related: Liverpool 1-0 West Ham: Premier League – as it happened

Merely 69 seconds had elapsed when Trent Alexander-Arnold released Mohamed Salah behind the visiting defence with a quick free-kick, taken with West Ham penalised for offside and failing to spot the right-back’s intentions. Salah was clean through on goal, Kurt Zouma fading into the distance behind him, but Lukasz Fabianski closed down the angle and saved the striker’s placed shot with his leg. Salah found himself free inside the West Ham penalty area moments later and thwarted on this occasion by Craig Dawson’s well-timed challenge. Sandwiched in-between the Salah