Liverpool 3-1 Southampton: Mo Salah marks two penalty kicks while Reds goes sixteen points clearly in the reigning race after coming behind to beat the lower side of the first League

Liverpool’s attack was this week compared to the “three fighter planes” of the boss of Paris Saint-Germain, Luis Enrique.

But for 45 languid minutes against Lowly Southampton, they looked more like a trivial budget aircraft with propellers, which was fighting to take off.

They were disturbed by turbulence, because the worst team of the league took a surprise lead, then they were given a rollicking by the Boss Arne Slot, looking at the stands – air traffic control giving them a skill if you want to stick to the analogy.

Soon, Liverpool looked like the red arrows, zooming in the sky and leaving everything in their wake. Flashes and you will miss them.

Three substitutions at half-time then two goals in two minutes just after turned the match on his head and opened a 16-point lead at the top of the Premier League table. Darwin Nunez continued his acquisition to mark and then win a penalty that Mohamed Salah converted.

The Egyptian put the icing on the cake in the 88th minute with another kick to make him 32 goals in a breathtaking campaign which dismisses Liverpool to supremacy and who knows how many individual distinctions to go with it.

Poor Old Southampton and Manager Ivan Juric looked like rabbits in the headlights. In the first half, they played with confidence, vigor and a structure that deserved their league position. They were allowed to put a glove on Liverpool but were quickly overturned by the rapid one-two.

As most of the teams that come here discover it, slot men can put you to sleep in a false feeling of security and soon you are dead and buried. He feels the same for Arsenal in the title race. They played two games less than Liverpool, but the points on the set are what matters.

Liverpool head coach asked his players to treat this match as the first of the three cup finals this week, with PSG in town on Tuesday, then a Carabao Cup final against Newcastle on Sunday.

Instead of a final, it looked more like a third-round confrontation in FA Cup in the first half. A heavy goods vehicle vacillate against a vairon, in relative terms at least. Complacency? Maybe. Fatigue? Certainly. Anfield felt flat both in the stands and on the ground.

After a famous victory but nevertheless one zap in the French capital, it was perhaps still intended to be a day when Liverpool showed symptoms of wood.

Liverpool saw a lot of ball, but the guardian of the saints Aaron Ramsdale only made simple stops and the outdoor team grew up in confidence after a series of dangerous corners.

Then they took a shock lead on the half-time while Alisson and Virgil Van Dijk both artificial to leave the ball for each other. None of the two took possession and Will Smallbone cut himself, seized the possession and then intelligently inserted into the empty net.

After seeing their team only take five points on the road this season, the faithful fans of the saints who make the hard sites by the road and rail every two weeks celebrated the goal as if they had waited a lifetime to do it. Of course them.

Slot, meanwhile, had his hands on his eyes and looked furious.

Some fans called for Nunez and Luis Diaz to be transported to the break, but Slot knows better and none of them was sacrificed in his triple change. The South American duo quickly combined for the Liverpool equalizer, Diaz Squaring to bare to finish with power.

A few seconds later – truly, a few seconds – Nunnez was getting ahead of his scorer and Smallbone defeated the Uruguayan. The young referee Lewis Smith underlined the place and Salah sent comfortably for 2-1.

From a stadium riddled with anxiety and frustration, this place was soon a hot cauldron of noise and jubilation. Johnny Heitinga, the coach taking charge of Liverpool, called Nunez and gave him a kiss on the forehead and slap on the buttocks … plus some tactical instructions.

Nunez was recently harmed with slots that called him for a lower work rate, but the last days have been perfect: superb help in the Parc des Princes, a thunderous finish and a penalty. To make a good measure, he put his finger with the lips to silence the outer end which narrated him earlier.

Southampton was barely sniffing after that and Liverpool put the bed in bed 88 minutes when Yukinari Sugawara managed the ball in the penalty area. Salah has intensified and, well, you know the rest.