Winners and Losers as Liverpool beat Leicester to extend Premier League lead

Liverpool have resoundingly beaten Leicester City at Anfield to extend their lead atop the Premier League table.

The Reds came into Boxing Day 4 points clear of Chelsea with a game in-hand. They kicked off their match with Leicester 4 points clear with two games in-hand as Chelsea collapsed at the death of their clash with Fulham.

Things were looking good for Liverpool, but then they fell behind to a shock early goal from Leicester. However, strikes either side of half-time restored the Reds’ lead before they bagged a third late on.

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Who were the winners and losers of this closing clash of an exciting and surprising slate of Boxing Day fixtures?

Winner: Mohamed Salah

Every single Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd fan was sneaking a glance at social media all through Christmas Day. They were busy refreshing their Twitter feeds to see if Mohamed Salah had posted annual Christmas picture.

It has become a sort of unwelcome tradition that Salah posts a picture of himself and his family in front of a fancy Christmas tree every year and somehow tanks his form.

And given how dominant Salah had been this season, rival fans were hoping he’d do the same this year. And true to form he did not disappoint.

But he did disappoint those rival fans by playing brilliantly against Leicester. There was no sign of having cursed himself as he sliced and diced the Foxes to bits.

That strike makes it 100 home goals in the Premier League, 98 for Liverpool. He played a big part in most all of Liverpool’s attacks tonight, including their second goal, before scoring the third. He remains top scorer of the Premier League and although he has yet to secure his new contract, he looks like making it a spectacular farewell.

Loser: Harry Winks

After Leicester taking a shock lead early on, Liverpool did dominate the rest of the game but just couldn’t break a stubborn Leicester rearguard down.

That is, until Cody Gakpo peeled a superb strike into the corner of the net. The Dutchman cut inside and unleashed a rocket off his right-foot into the back of the net.

And while it was a super strike, Gakpo had an eternity to take it. As he said after the match: “I was surprised in the first or second action that there was a lot of space in the middle,” he said to Prime Video Sport after the match.

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The man who gave him that space? Harry Winks. Instead of stepping up to block off Gakpo he stood there, hands behind his back, doubled over like he had just let fly with a Googly delivery at Lord’s.

Yes, Alexis MacAllister made a good decoy run, but Winks didn’t even really get too moved by that. Instead just staring down Gakpo as he shot. Embarrassing.

Winner: Cody Gakpo

Much as Winks made it easy on him, the way that Gakpo first cut inside from the excellent James Justin and secondly just absolutely scythed it into the back post? Sublime.

Gakpo is the only player to score for Liverpool outside the box this season, having now done it twice. And he is thriving this season under Arne Slot, playing wide on the left instead of in that false nine role that Jurgen Klopp had him in last season.

Loser: Patson Daka

After the second Liverpool goal just after half-time, a true punch in the gut for Leicester, it looked like the Reds were about to steamroller the Foxes.

That didn’t happen. Liverpool were certainly the better side, but it stayed 2-1 for a while. This kept the chance alive that Leicester could steal it, if only they could take their chance.

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Then their chance came, as a cross into the box was arriving perfectly for Patson Daka to strike it first-time and power it into the net.

Except that didn’t happen. Daka didn’t even hit the ball, he completely mis-kicked and scuffed the ball up into the air. A huge, massive mistake that let Liverpool off the hook and all but doomed Leicester who never did anything of note after that.

Winner: Arne Slot

The Premier League is a piece of cake, no? That’s what Arne Slot is making it look like anyway. In his first 17 games as a Premier League boss, Arne Slot has won 14 games, drawn 3 and lost just 1 match. They’re also top of the Champions League with a perfect 6 wins from 6 games.

Slot has reworked and rebuilt Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool into a much sharper and and more decisive side. They are more composed and controlled, less helter skelter.

“I liked the second goal more because for me it was more of a team goal,” said Slot when asked about the quality of his side’s strikes today.

Picking a lovely flowing passing move that ended with a tap-in over two superb strikes from his forwards shows the team-focused approach of Arne Slot.

It should come as no surprise that Slot said his dream job is Barcelona, because his side play with similar kind of possession-based approach and this makes it even more poetic that it’s Arne Slot who is going to finally dethrone Pep Guardiola who has so dominated the Premier League with Barcelona-style football.

Loser: Arsenal

With Pep Guardiola spiralling out of control, Man City will offer no threat to Liverpool. And Chelsea’s points total is impressive but they remain a young side who lack the rigour to mount a truly relentless title challenge to hunt the Reds down.

The one side that could challenge was Arsenal. And 10 minutes into tonight’s game against Arsenal they were the day’s big winner without even playing as Chelsea lost and Liverpool were losing.

Then the Reds turned it around to get the win, extending Liverpool’s lead atop the Premier League to 7 points with a game in-hand, and while Arsenal can cut this to a 6 point lead tomorrow, Arne Slot’s men are in a truly commanding position.

So after running Man City so close for the last two seasons, Arsenal are finally still in great shape when City’s veterans have fallen off and are in position to be toppled… and it looks like Liverpool will be the ones to topple them!