Sadio Mané nets Liverpool’s 200th goal under Klopp to see off Newcastle

Liverpool were not at their sparking best on a bitterly cold and slightly foggy evening on Merseyside, though partly thanks to Mohamed Salah keeping up his scoring run they were too lively for Newcastle and are now up to second in the table. Their supporters probably do not expect them to stay there for very long, the significance of this result, apart from bringing up 200 Premier League goals under Jürgen Klopp, is that should Chelsea lose to Manchester City on Sunday there will be a seven-point cushion between Liverpool and the dreaded fifth place. Unless Chelsea win, in fact, the fight for top-four places could be as good as over.

Early interest was provided by the question of how quickly Salah could get onto the scoresheet. The Egypt international had scored in each of his last six Liverpool games before Saturday, and one more here took him to 32 in all competitions this season, exactly the same as the entire Newcastle team have managed thus far.

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