Liverpool’s runaway lead grows, City lose again

AP:

LIVERPOOL’S LEAD in the Premier League has grown to 16 points.

Mohamed Salah’s lead in the Golden Boot contest is up to seven goals.

Both races are turning into a procession after Salah converted two second-half penalties for his 26th and 27th goals of the campaign to clinch a 3-1 win for Liverpool at home to last-place Southampton yesterday.

It seems a matter of when, not if, Liverpool secure their record-tying 20th English top-flight championship, even if Arsenal — way back in second place — have two games in hand. Liverpool’s players have nine games left but surely won’t need all of them to seal the title.

Maybe a more staggering statistic is that Manchester City, the winners of the last four titles, are now 23 points behind Liverpool after a 1-0 loss at third-place Nottingham Forest, whose 83rd-minute winner came from Callum Hudson-Odoi.

City are in fourth place, at least for overnight, and have a fight on their hands just to finish in the top five, which should be enough to qualify for the Champions League this season. Only five points separate City from Fulham in 10th place.

Erling Haaland had a quiet match and — stuck on 20 goals — is now struggling to be the league’s top scorer for the third straight season.

Instead, it’s Salah heading for the Golden Boot, which he won outright in 2017-18 and shared in the 2018-19 and 2021-22 seasons, and is now up to 184 goals in the Premier League — tied with Man City great Sergio Aguero at number five on the all-time list. Aguero and Salah are the top-scoring foreign players since the Premier League was founded in 1992.

For Liverpool, the meeting with Southampton came in the middle of two matches in a six-day span against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League’s last 16.

Liverpool hold a 1-0 lead after the first leg in Paris on Wednesday and manager Arne Slot opted against mass rotation ahead of the return match on Tuesday. Indeed, Salah played the whole match.

Darwin Nunez started after setting up Harvey Elliott’s winner in the French capital and scored himself in the 51st minute, cancelling out Will Smallbone’s shock opener for Southampton in first-half stoppage time.

Nunez was then fouled for the first penalty slotted home by Salah in the 54th, before the Egypt star notched his second in the 88th after a handball.

“The manager, his head was going for us but it’s something you need sometimes,” Salah said of Slot’s halftime reaction.

“Because the first half it was sloppy and we were slow.”

Southampton stayed 13 points from safety and look destined for an immediate return to the Championship.

Forest’s improbable bid for Champions League qualification was strengthened by beating City, whose goalkeeper Ederson Moraes was beaten at his near post by Hudson-Odoi’s shot late in a tight game at the City Ground.

A few minutes earlier, Ederson had tipped a curling strike by Hudson-Odoi onto the post.

“I knew I’d get another chance and that one went in, so I’m buzzing,” Hudson-Odoi said.

Forest were battling relegation last season and finished 59 points behind City. Now they are four points ahead of the soon-to-be-deposed champions and have 10 games remaining as the club looks to get back into Europe’s top competition, which Forest famously won in 1979 and ’80 under Brian Clough.

City have lost three of their last five league games, to the current top three of Liverpool, Arsenal and now Forest.

“Every season the Premier League gets better and better,” Guardiola said. “We have 10 finals (to go).”

YESTERDAY’S RESULTS

Forest 1-0 Man City

Palace 1-0 Ipswich

Brighton 2-1 Fulham

Liverpool 3-1 Southampton

Brentford 0-1 Villa

Wolves 1-1 Everton