EPL: Liverpool put seven past shambolic Palace

Liverpool put out a seven-star performance as they ended a three-month wait for an away win in the Premier League in a comprehensive fashion with a 7-0 thrashing of Crystal Palace on Saturday to move six points clear at the top of the table.

The win means Liverpool will spend Chrismas as league leaders for the third year in a row, as they opened up a six point lead at the top to heap pressure on chasers Tottenham.

It was fireworks from the start as Minamino took just three minutes to open the scoring when he was teed up by Mane for his first Premier League goal.

Palace had chances to get back into the game as Fabinho’s intervention just took Wilfried Zaha’s dangerous cross away from Jordan Ayew.

Ayew then wasted a glorious chance as he pounced on an uncharacteristic error from Fabinho, but tried to tee up Zaha rather than going for goal himself and played the ball behind the Ivorian.

At the other end, the visitors were ruthless as Mane ended his longest goal drought as a Liverpool player at nine games with an excellent turn and low finish from Firmino’s pass.

A clinical counter-attack made it three before the break as this time Firmino latched onto Andy Robertson’s cross before calmly flicking the ball beyond Vicente Guaita.

Liverpool had not won in their previous five league games and have already dropped more points this season than they had prior to sealing a first league title in 30 years last season.

However, Klopp’s men have so far survived an injury crisis and with more players returning to fitness are now in pole position to defend their title.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is one of those to have returned in recent weeks after a month out and the England international’s pass was swept home by Henderson from outside the box to make it 4-0.

Klopp then took the chance to give Mane a rest, but the Senegalese voiced his frustration at being removed to be replaced by Salah.

The Egyptian played his part for the fifth with the pass into Firmino, who has now scored as many goals in his last two games than his previous 27 Premier League appearances.

Salah then moved to the top of the Premier League goalscoring charts this season with a late double by heading home from a corner before bending an incredible effort into the top corner.

This is the first time in Liverpools top-tier history that they have won an away match by a margin of seven goals.