Mohamed Salah scored twice as Liverpool defeated Brentford 3-0 in round 12 of the Premier League to equalize the score with Man City and Arsenal.

After using the second squad in the match against Toulouse in the Europa League, coach Juergen Klopp returned to the strongest squad when taking on Brenford in round 12 of the Premier League. This caution is not redundant when Brenford is in very good form with 3 consecutive wins before coming to Anfield.

With home field advantage and quality players, Liverpool dominated the game. Midway through the first half, Nunez put the ball into the away team’s net but was determined to be offside by VAR.

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However, near the end of the first half, Nunez still had the opportunity to shine when he passed the ball to Salah to face the away team’s goalkeeper and scored the opening goal in the 39th minute.

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That goal made it easier for Liverpool to play in the second half. At the beginning of the second half, Brentford players proactively pushed the team up to put pressure on them, looking for opportunities to score and equalize the score.

However, just 10 minutes into the second half, the referee paused the match so the VAR team could check Wataru Endo’s red card when the Japanese midfielder made a dangerous tackle on Brentford’s Christian Noergaard. Luckily for Liverpool, there was no penalty against Endo.

In the 62nd minute, Tsimikas tried to cross the ball from the left wing in for Salah to comfortably head in to increase the score to 2-0. This is the Egyptian star’s 200th goal in the Premier League.

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This goal was also controversial because it seemed like the ball was out of the field before it was crossed by Tsimikas, but later, VAR determined the ball was in play.

Tsimikas continued to create the third goal, but it was actually Diogo Jota’s effort when he dribbled the ball past three away team players before making it 3-0 in the 74th minute.

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At the end of the match, Brentford still tried very hard to attack. Within just one minute, it was Van Dijk’s turn to Alisson’s turn to make excellent saves from consecutive corners from the away team Brentford.

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This victory helped Liverpool have 27 points like Man City and Arsenal, but with a difference of +17, Liverpool was temporarily ranked above Arsenal (with a difference of +16), while Tottenham dropped to 4th with only 26 points.

Tottenham’s position in the top 4 is also under strong pressure due to the promotion of Aston Villa. This round, Aston Villa won 3-1 against Fulham to get 25 points, only 1 point behind Tottenham.