By Sam Tobin
LONDON (Reuters) -Liverpool extended their lead at the top of the Premier League to four points with a dominant but chaotic 6-3 win at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday thanks to doubles from Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah.
Diaz met Trent Alexander-Arnold’s beautiful cross with a diving header to open the scoring before Alexis Mac Allister nodded home from close range to double Liverpool’s lead.
James Maddison pulled one back four minutes before half-time after Mac Allister was dispossessed in midfield by Dejan Kulusevski to give the hosts a route back into the contest.
But Dominik Szoboszlai scored in first half added time to restore the Reds’ two-goal lead and give Spurs a mountain to climb.
Salah netted twice in seven second-half minutes, passing Liverpool great Billy Liddell on the club’s all-time scoring list with his 14th and 15th league goals of the season, to make it 5-1 and send some Spurs fans heading to the exits.
“I’m happy and proud, I’ll just keep working hard,” said Liverpool’s now fourth most prolific scorer with 229 goals.
Dejan Kulusevski’s volley was followed by Dominic Solanke’s 83rd-minute goal to give Spurs hope of an unlikely comeback, before Diaz made it 6-3 two minutes later and finish a madcap contest that could have had even more goals.
“We were quite good up front but defensively we need to improve as a team,” added Salah to Sky TV. “It’s quite good the result, and hopefully we just keep going.”
Liverpool are top with 39 points from 16 games, four points above second-placed Chelsea who have played a game more.
Spurs remain 11th, with 23 points from 17 games, but boss Ange Postecoglu insisted his side would stick to their attacking style, which has produced 30 goals for both sides in their last five games, despite Sunday’s “painful result”.
“I think I’ve been really, really patient the last 18 months, sitting up here answering the same questions over and over again,” he told reporters.
“If people want me to change my approach, it’s not going to change. We’re doing it for a reason, we’re doing it because we think it’ll help us be successful.”
BREATHLESS
The Reds constantly threatened in attack and Salah ought to have put them ahead inside three minutes when Spurs goalkeeper Fraser Forster, who made two costly errors in midweek, passed straight to him in the box, but Salah dragged his shot wide.
Salah then hit the bar after beating three defenders with some silky footwork, but the visitors deservedly took the lead in the 23rd minute with Diaz heading home at full stretch.
A second looked an inevitability and it came in the 36th minute after Andy Robertson’s cross to Szoboszlai bounced kindly for Mac Allister, who nodded past the onrushing Forster.
Mac Allister was at fault for Spurs’ first goal, however, which came out of nowhere and ought to have given Spurs a platform to drag themselves back into it.
But Szoboszlai made it 3-1, running onto Salah’s through ball and nutmegging Forster at the end of a sweeping move.
Salah got in on the act after the break, tapping home from close range in the 54th minute and then adding another shortly after when Szoboszlai laid it on a plate.
Liverpool showed no signs of sitting back, with Forster forced into a good save to deny Alexander-Arnold, before Kulusevski and then Solanke raised the prospect of a remarkable comeback.
But Diaz placed a clinical finish past Forster with five minutes of normal time remaining to end a breathless encounter, which fell two goals short of equalling a Premier League record.
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot praised his side’s offensive display, but admitted he felt slightly relieved with their sixth goal to snuff out Spurs’ faint hopes of a comeback.
“Until 60-65 minutes (in) I really, really, really enjoyed what I saw,” he told reporters.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
