Three goals from three different scorers saw Liverpool extend their winning run to three matches with a routine 3-0 Premier League win over Nottingham Forest in an emotionally-charged Anfield battle.
Hours after the distressing news broke of Luis Diaz’s parents being kidnapped in Colombia, the Reds paid tribute to their absent winger when Diogo Jota broke the deadlock, before Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah also got their names on the scoresheet in a solid day’s work.
While Nunez was brought in for Diaz, Anthony Elanga recovered from an illness to start for the visitors, but he and Morgan Gibbs-White saw very little action in the final third during the opening 20 minutes, as Liverpool huffed and puffed for the first goal straight away.
However, Steve Cooper’s decision to switch to a back five was paying dividends early on, as Forest goalkeeper Matt Turner had little to do, catching a tame Jota shot in the eighth minute before witnessing Alexis Mac Allister’s speculative attempt flash wide nine moments later.
Nottingham Forest’s game plan was working to a tee, but as the Tricky Trees began to take a few more risks, they were caught cold in the 32nd minute, as Turner palmed a deflected Nunez strike back into the danger area, and Jota fed on the scraps with a simple finish.
During the celebrations, Jota paid a touching tribute to Diaz and his family by holding up his teammate’s jersey to the crowd, and a rejuvenated Liverpool took just three minutes to increase their advantage.
Building down the right again, Salah slipped in Dominik Szoboszlai with a crisp pass to the byline, and the Hungarian cut back for Nunez, who blasted the ball into the roof of the net from a couple of yards out.
With Plan A in the bin, Forest tried to hit Liverpool on the counter in the second half without success, but the Reds were being frustrated in their efforts to make the result more emphatic, thanks in no small part to poor final balls.
Lackadaisical finishing was on show too, as Salah, Harvey Elliott and Trent Alexander-Arnold all cleared the crossbar in a seven-minute period, but the former would finally get one right to continue his astonishing Anfield run.
With 13 minutes left to play, Turner ventured out into no man’s land to try to intercept a long Szoboszlai pass, but the American was seemingly caught in two minds as the ball bounced over him, and Salah calmly rolled home into an empty net from 25 yards to register a goal contribution for the 14th Premier League home game running.
A stress-free end to the match would have been on the hosts’ agenda, but the Kop did not bank on Elanga striking the crossbar with a venomous volley from Ryan Yates’s delivery in the 85th minute, and the Swede sent a similar effort over the top just four minutes later.
Liverpool thought that their fourth had arrived through Cody Gakpo in the fourth minute of injury time, but the offside flag denied the Dutchman, who had just gone too early to receive Elliott’s pass.
Gakpo’s disallowed effort mattered not in the grand scheme of things, as Liverpool temporarily rose to third place in the rankings, while Forest have dropped below Everton into 16th owing to the Toffees’ win at West Ham United.
Klopp’s side now have an EFL Cup fourth-round clash with Bournemouth on their schedule for Wednesday, while Forest meet Aston Villa in the top flight next weekend.
