Liverpool’s renewed expertise from corners delivered a 5-2 win over West Ham at Anfield that felt far more emphatic on the scoreboard than it did in general play. Hugo Ekitike, Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister all struck from first-half corners to put Arne Slot’s side 3-0 up at the break, before Tomas Soucek and Taty Castellanos twice hauled West Ham back to within two goals. Cody Gakpo’s deflected strike and a late Axel Disasi own goal ultimately ensured Liverpool recorded five league goals in a game for the first time this season.
The result lifted Liverpool to fifth in the Premier League table, above Chelsea and level on points with fourth-placed Manchester United, while simultaneously halting a West Ham side that had been unbeaten in February and had taken 11 points from their previous six matches. Yet the underlying numbers told a different story to the scoreline: the final xG tally showed 1.75 for Liverpool and 1.84 for the Hammers, underlining Nuno Espírito Santo’s sense that his team had played well in long spells but been punished remorselessly at set-pieces.
For Liverpool, the afternoon encapsulated a strange season in which performances have sometimes outstripped results. Here, by contrast, Slot’s men admitted they had been only OK-to-good in open play, but devastating from dead balls. For West Ham, whose own attacking play offered genuine encouragement, the sight of three goals conceded from corners and a late own goal left a damaging defeat feeling almost self-inflicted, despite the quality of the opposition.
Corners turn Liverpool’s former weakness into decisive weapon