LONDON: They walked out to another guard of honour, with a huge rectangular banner high up in the Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand reading: ‘Liverpool FC Champions Again’.

Liverpool’s players were back home at Anfield for the first time since winning a first English league title since 1990.

It was a triumphant return, too.

Lacking the intensity and precision that brought the team the title in devastating fashion, Liverpool still managed to eke out a 2-0 win over Aston Villa to move in sight of a slew of records to cap one of the best ever top-flight campaigns.

Second-half goals by Sadio Mane and Curtis Jones secured a 17th straight win at Anfield, with just two more needed against Burnley and Chelsea to complete a 100% home record that would be unprecedented in the Premier League.

Four wins from the last five matches and Liverpool will also pass Manchester City’s record from 2017-18 of 100 points in one season.

Not that Jurgen Klopp is necessarily counting.

“The only thing I can say,” the Liverpool manager said, “is there’s no chance to win records if you constantly think about records. We don’t want records. We want the three points.”

That’s something Liverpool almost always manage to obtain, however they play.

Eager to rebound from a 4-0 loss at City on Thursday where their attitude was widely questioned, Klopp’s players were again not at their best without the backing of their fans inside an empty stadium.

But they eventually ground Villa down with a resilience and relentlessness that Klopp has forged in his team.

Mane swept home a finish off the underside of the crossbar in the 71st minute for his 16th league goal of the season before Jones converted a shot from 10 meters out in the 89th after a nod-down from Mohamed Salah for his first Premier League goal.

With second-placed City losing 1-0 hours later at Southampton, Liverpool are on course to win the league by a record margin. The lead is currently 23 points, four more than the biggest ever final margin set by City in 2017-18.

CITY STUMBLE

City manager Pep Guardiola has lost three straight away games in the league for the first time as a coach. That unwanted record was sealed by a first-half wonder goal from Che Adams.

The Southampton striker hadn’t scored in his debut season at the club but, on his 30th appearance, he executed a lob from around 40 metres that sailed over City goalkeeper Ederson Moraes and curled into an unguarded net.

City’s players lacked the cutting edge they had in the 4-0 win over Liverpool on Thursday, failing to score despite having 26 shots in the game in a dominant performance at St. Mary’s Stadium.

It was a little bit of a resume of this season — one mistake and they punished us,” said Guardiola. “We played a really good performance but it was not enough.”

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2020