LONDON: Liverpool, after the fire and fury of the midweek Merseyside derby, managed to regain their temper, poise and winning form to edge out Wolves 2-1 at Anfield and deny the chasing pack any further chink of hope. This was a massive three points from the first of six games in a 27-day spell climaxing in next month’s League Cup Final.

The 2-2 draw at Everton in midweek had cost Liverpool more than red cards in the final whistle chaos for Curtis Jones and manager Arne Slot. The emotion of the occasion had also drained Liverpool’s reserves of emotional energy. This was shown up in the latter stages as Wolves recovered from a two-goal deficit to push a weary Liverpool all the way to the final whistle.

Liverpool had been easily in control at the interval. Luis Diaz scrambled home an early goal and was then fouled so Mohamed Salah could claim his 24th goal of term from the penalty spot. So far, so simple.

However Wolves, after two halftime changes and a pep talk from manager Vitor Pereira, looked a different team. They charged forward, were relieved when VAR overturned a Liverpool penalty award, and capitalised with a fine goal from Matheus Cunha. This forced Liverpool to remove Diaz to strengthen midfield with Wataru Endo. Thus Slot’s men somehow clung on for victory and a seven-point advantage over Arsenal in second spot.

Slot said: “This one is big. We needed to fight and we needed Alisson. I did see for the first time this season that players were more tired than they have been. It’s never the gameplan never to create anything at all. We did have a goal offside and a penalty overturned then the team felt that to bring this win over the line, defending was more important than attacking. if this is what it takes to win a game then I’m happy the players could do that again.”

Arsenal remain distant challengers but needed two late goals from emergency striker Mikel Merino to secure a 2:0 win at crisis club Leicester. The Spain midfielder, a second-half substitute, said he had never previously played up front but was happy to play wherever needed, even in goal if necessary.

Merino’s goals could not hide the fact that the Gunners will struggle for goals on the title run-in without both Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz. Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli are also sidelined while Raheem Sterling is badly out of form.

Havertz had scored nine important league goals as a stand-in centre-forward before suffering a hamstring injury during Arsenal’s warm weather training escape to Dubai. The need for surgery, ruling Havertz out for the rest of the season, was a disaster for Mikel Arteta.

Arsenal’s manager said: “We were having a great camp then Kai was going to stop a shot after a set-piece and felt the hamstring go. We’ve been through a lot this season. Now let’s see what the team is made of.”

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