JAKARTA - Liverpool finally tasted victory again after beating host Tottenham Hotspur with a score of 3-1 in Week 20 of the Premier League at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London, Thursday local time (Friday WIB).
Liverpool, who had previously gone through at least 483 minutes in a goal drought, won with goals from Roberto Firmino, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Sadio Mane which Tottenham could only reply once through Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.
The result that ended Liverpool's winless trend in the previous five games made them move up to fourth again with a collection of 37 points.
Meanwhile, Tottenham (33), who have always lost against Liverpool this season, are now stuck in sixth place in the standings, Antara quoted as saying on the official Premier League website.
Mane's failure to take advantage of the first chance of the match was almost paid dearly by Liverpool because a moment later their goal was breached by Son Heung-min.
Liverpool were lucky to be saved by VAR who found Son was caught offside in the attack process, so referee Martin Atkinson annulled the goal.
After lots of chances wasted and the goalkeeper of both teams looking solid at the goal, the first half looked like it was going to be gone but four minutes of injury time caused by VAR and Harry Kane injury was able to be used by Liverpool to open the lead.
Just in the fourth minute of injury time, Serge Aurier was careless to let Mane out of his way to deliver an unanticipated tug by Joe Rodon to give Firmino the chance to poke the ball in the mouth of the goal.
Jose Mourinho tried to overcome Kane's injury by bringing in Erik Lamela at the start of the second half, along with Harry Winks who replaced Aurier.
In the Liverpool camp, Juergen Klopp also took a bold step by fielding defender Nathan Phillips to replace Joel Matip, who did not seem fit enough to appear the full 90 minutes.
The substitution of the two players was enough to make Tottenham's defense coordination not ready to enter the second half which ended with Alexander-Arnold's success in doubling Liverpool's lead in the 47th minute.
Mane sauntered past the Tottenham defense to curl a shot that was not completely stopped by goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and the bouncing ball was struck by Alexaner-Arnold, who in recent weeks has been the target of criticism amid a period of negative Liverpool form.
However, Tottenham gave an instant answer two minutes later when Liverpool's players failed to block a Steven Bergwijn attack and the ball was struck with a hard shot by Hojbjerg into the area of the far post beyond goalkeeper Alisson Becker.
In the 59th minute, the Liverpool players celebrated again when Mohamed Salah finished Mane's pass to perfection. However, the goal was later disallowed by VAR and referee Martin Atkinson because Firmino was convicted of a handball foul during the attack.
Six minutes later, Liverpool really scored their third goal through Mane's hard shot which took advantage of Rodon's negligence who failed to anticipate a bouncing cross from Alexander-Arnold.
With a 3-1 advantage, Liverpool are calmer and concentrate on guarding their defense, which is not under much threat because Son does not have capable partners to build Tottenham's attack.
The two teams will play their next match on Sunday, January 31 when Liverpool travel to West Ham United and Tottenham visit Brighton & Hove Albion.
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