Brighton’s emphatic run was blown off course at Anfield as Liverpool moved up to fourth with an appetite and urgency at both ends of the pitch that showed Andoni Iraola’s methods taking root. It is Liverpool, convincing winners on home soil for the first time this season in the Premier League, who looked upwardly mobile. Florian Wirtz was instrumental in an opening goal officially credited to Brighton’s Pascal Gross and Alexander Isak converted his sixth league goal of the campaign to shatter the visitors’ sequence of four successive Premier League wins.
Brighton’s winning streak had included 15 goals and none against but there was neither attacking verve nor defensive resilience on show from Fabian Hürzeler’s side. Liverpool had a monopoly on both, and the sight of Bradley Barcola racing back to defend and Ronald Araújo thundering into challenges will have satisified Iraola just as much as the incisiveness up front. Storm Boelo raged outside the stadium but inside it was relatively calm, vindicating the decision to proceed with the game.
The run of wins and clean sheets that had swept Hurzeler’s team into third place before kick off was devastated by Liverpool’s attacking force. The home side’s superior first half performance was another demonstration of the expensive trio of Wirtz, Isak and Barcola feeling increasingly at home under Iraola. Liverpool were aggressive and sharp from the start, in contrast to their opening against Villarreal in the Champions League on Tuesday, and opened the scoring just as Brighton were beginning to exert their first serious spell of pressure.
There was an element of good fortune about the breakthrough but it also encapsulated the differing intensity between the teams when Wirtz held off Lewis Dunk and Araújo beat both the Brighton captain and Oliver Boscagli to the loose ball. His low cross pin-balled off two Brighton players before rebounding to Wirtz, whose first time shot deceived Bart Verbruggen via another deflection off Gross. Wirtz’s low key celebration hinted at what was to come.
It was not his first league goal of the campaign and second goal in successive games after all. The breakthrough was officially credited as an own goal from the Brighton midfielder. It should also have been a Liverpool equaliser rather than the opener as Yasin Ayari had a glorious chance to give Brighton the lead moments earlier.
Diego Gómez and Gross combined to pierce Liverpool’s left flank and present Ayari with a free sight of goal with Alisson dragged across to his left. The Brighton forward blazed high into the Kop and would soon have added reason to rue the miscue. Liverpool quickly doubled their lead when capitalising on more casual Brighton defending.
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