(Football news) Arne Slot’s men saw their fixture be the only one in the top flight to fall victim to Storm Darragh, but even without playing, it was still a positive weekend for the Premier League leaders.
Not being in action means Liverpool will have a game in hand over their title rivals for the next two months at least, and that will be a great opportunity for the Reds given that both Arsenal and Manchester City dropped points last week.
With City in complete crisis, their race almost looks run already, meaning Chelsea are now the closest challengers, four points behind Liverpool after their 4-3 win at Tottenham Hotspur.
Arsenal and City failing to win mitigated the impact of Liverpool dropping two points in the final minute away to Newcastle United last midweek—just the third time in 21 games that they had failed to win under Slot.
The Dutch manager’s dream start continued in midweek though, with Mohamed Salah’s penalty sealing a 1-0 win at Girona, meaning they still have a 100% record in the Champions League after six games.
Returning to home soil will be an even bigger confidence boost, considering the defeat to Nottingham Forest in September remains the only time they have not won across their last 13 at Anfield.
Defensive frailty has raised some questions in recent weeks, but they are making up for that by being clinical in attack, having now scored two or more goals in seven straight Premier League games—their best streak in over three years.
They could still break their Premier League goalscoring record for a calendar year with four games left in 2024, sitting 12 short of the record 88 they put up across 2019.
Fulham are a team they enjoyed great success against in front of goal last season too, scoring seven in doing the league double over the Cottagers, extending their run against them to nine wins in 12 in the Premier League.
Marco Silva’s men did give them plenty of frights across their four meetings last season though, leading 3-2 with 10 minutes to play at Anfield before a 4-3 loss, while also taking the lead in the first leg of their EFL Cup semi-final.
Fulham were also one of the six clubs who beat Liverpool at Anfield during their bizarre run of form at the start of 2021, but they are still yet to beat the Reds here in front of a crowd.
That win was also before Silva joined the club, and he has only ever won one of his 11 meetings with Liverpool as a manager, and losing 5-2 at Anfield as Everton manager in 2019 ultimately saw him sacked.
It was his Fulham team that handed Liverpool a big helping hand in the title race last Sunday though, holding Arsenal to a 1-1 draw at Craven Cottage, avoiding defeat late on thanks to a VAR offside call that ruled out Bukayo Saka’s goal.
That took Fulham to 23 points after 15 games, the second-best tally in their Premier League history, only behind the 25 they collected at this point of the 2003-04 season, where they ultimately finished ninth.
Despite that fine points tally and losing just one of their last seven games, Fulham are still down in 10th, but the congested nature of the Premier League top half means they are just four points behind Man City in the top four.
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