Salah Misses A Penalty, Liverpool Beat Leicester 1-0

JAKARTA - Leicester City punished Liverpool, who appeared barren in the match week 20 of the Premier League with a 1-0 defeat at the King Power Stadium, Tuesday local time.

The only goal scored by Ademola Lookman was the decisive victory for Leicester over Liverpool who wasted so many opportunities to break into the host's goal.

The Premier League's interim top scorer, Mohamed Salah, wasted one of the golden opportunities to open Liverpool's advantage after his penalty kick was blocked by goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.

The ball threw up again towards Salah, but the Egyptian striker's header still hit the crossbar.

Schmeichel also made another brilliant save when he swiftly parried a Salah shot in the 33rd minute to keep the score at 0-0 at halftime.

In the 55th minute, Sadio Mane missed another golden Liverpool chance when he received a through ball from Diogo Jota but his flick flew over the bar.

The flop came at a cost as four minutes later Lookman, who had only come on in the 56th minute for Hamza Choudhury, played a supersub role to give Leicester the lead.

Starting from the carelessness of Liverpool's backline on the right, Lookman played a one-two with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall before beating Joel Matip and Virgil van Dijk with a shot that failed to stop goalkeeper Alisson Becker at the near post.

Juergen Klopp tried to turn things around by bringing in Roberto Firmino for Jordan Henderson and playing with four strikers, but Leicester who chose to be pragmatic managed to keep their defense tight to keep the score 1-0 until the final whistle.

The result was a slap in the face for Liverpool because on paper many aspects were in their favour, considering Leicester were exhausted having only rested two days after being beaten by Manchester City and playing without a pure center-back amid a combination of injuries and a spike in COVID-19 cases.

The result at King Power also saw Liverpool lose for the eighth year in a row, always losing in the calendar closing league game.

Liverpool missed the opportunity to cut the distance from leaders Manchester City. Liverpool is still in second place with 41 points from 19 games, six points behind City.

Meanwhile, Leicester, who won against Liverpool for the first time since 1999 in two consecutive league games, moved up to the ninth place with 25 points, according to the Premier League's official website.

Defeat is definitely not a positive capital for Liverpool who will open in 2022 by traveling to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea on Sunday, January 2.

The day before, Leicester returned to play at home by hosting bottom team Norwich City.