By Emmanuel Ebimoh
In what seemed like twin lightning strikes, the walls of Manchester United fell down to the swiftness of a super-sub, one man Jose Mourinho should have been aware of. The city of Liverpool could not have wished for a better climax to wrap up a scintillating performance against their most fierce rival. So when the game was gradually drawing to an abrupt end, in the light snow shower in North-west England, Xherdan Shaqiri, a lad Liverpool acquired for £13m, came on and brought Anfield to wild ecstasy in just about 7 minutes.
The Reds of Liverpool appeared to be too hot for Manchester United to handle in yesterday’s thrilling EPL encounter at Anfield. With 36 shots for the home team against 6 for the away team, United were left almost clueless of ideas for most parts of the game. Senegalese striker, Sadio Mane fired the home team to a lead in the 24th minute, before Jesse Lingard pounce on Alisson’s goalkeeping blunder to make the scores level before the first half break.
However, in the second half, Liverpool’s coach, Jürgen Klopp went for the joker when he brought in Swiss midfielder, Xherdan Shaqiri. With almost his first touch of the ball, Shaqiri lashed onto a loosed ball to fire the home team into a deserved lead in the 73rd minute. Anfield went berserk.
Then, in a final devastating move that struck the knife into the hearts of Mourinho and his players, sending Anfield into complete frenzy, Xherdan Shakiri gave Liverpool their 14th win of the season with a cool finish that ends the game at 3-1.
The emphatic win puts Liverpool top of the EPL table with 45 points from 17 games, followed closely by Manchester City who have 44 points. It’s obviously looking rosy for the Reds as they continue to climb higher in their bid to win the EPL title for the very first time!
