Marseille 0-3 Liverpool: The Reds cruise to victory on Salah’s return

Liverpool dominated the first half with several dangerous attacks. In the 22nd minute, Hugo Ekitiké appeared to have opened the scoring, but the French striker was ruled offside.  Marseille created chances of their own but failed to convert. Just before the interval, Dominik Szoboszlai stunned the stadium with a low-driven free kick into the bottom right corner to give Liverpool the lead. The first half ended 1-0 in favor of the visitors.

In the second half, Marseille increased the pressure. Their star forward Mason Greenwood had several opportunities, but his efforts were either thwarted by Alisson Becker or whistled past the post. Despite their pressure, Marseille failed to equalize and conceded again in the 72nd minute.

Jeremie Frimpong collected the ball on the right and dribbled past several defenders before attempting a cut-back. The ball took a deflection off goalkeeper Gerónimo Rulli and ended up in the net. After extending the lead to 2-0, Liverpool made several substitutions to conserve energy. In the final minute of stoppage time, Cody Gakpo added a third from a Ryan Gravenberch assist, sealing a 3-0 victory. 

Arne Slot said after the match: ” You know it is always very difficult to play against Marseille because of the passionate fans they have and the quality of the players. What makes it even harder is they have such a good manager, who always lets his team play so well. We were prepared for that”.

Captain Virgil van Dijk also shared the difficulty to beat De Zerbi’s Marseille. “It’s always difficult, in my opinion, to play against [Roberto] De Zerbi teams because if you are not front-footed, if you are late in your press, they can play out pretty easy,” - he said.

“Obviously they persist and keep on playing and taking those risks, so if you are winning those balls in between the lines then there is plenty of space in between the lines to exploit and I think we did that pretty well. But overall I think the performance was very good, something to build on. We will recover and go again”.

Following this result, Liverpool climbed to 4th place after seven matches with 15 points (5 wins, 2 losses). They sit level on points with Real Madrid but remain behind them on goal difference.

In the final match of the league phase, Liverpool will face Azerbaijani side Qarabag at Anfield. A victory will guarantee a Top 8 finish for Arne Slot’s side, allowing them to bypass the knockout play-offs. Liverpool have now extended their winning streak to 13 matches across all competitions and will look to maintain that momentum against Bournemouth this Sunday.