West Ham 0-5 Liverpool: Arne Slot’s side close out 2024 with a dominant victory at the London Stadium to extend their lead at the top of the table

There will come a time when Arne Slot will discover that the Premier League is not so easy after all. Days when it’s a little complicated. But as 2024 moves towards 2025, the only question is whether a rival will be a mile away from Liverpool if such a slip-up occurs.

For now, we are witnessing a glorious run to the title and a Slot achievement that is as surprising as the collapse of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.

With an eight-point cushion, they are tightening the screw with brutal delight for all involved, this team that was sensibly tipped to struggle when Jurgen Klopp left, but instead improved. Absolutely remarkable, really.

We can balance all that by saying that a 5-0 thrashing of West Ham requires perspective. Because it does. They were of no use and Julen Lopetegui’s immediate future will once again be in question due to this recurring event.

But it was never about them. This was about the unstoppable force of Mo Salah, about an attacking trio that created 22 chances, about a team that is unique in the division for the absence of anything approaching a wobble.

That they will fall from this point of view seems incredibly unlikely. Of course, they have a bit of history in that regard: on six previous occasions when they have led the Premier League heading into the new year, they have only managed to do so once.

But who will chase them? Nottingham Forest? They are a beautiful surprise, but let’s not be silly. Chelsea? According to their own coach, they are not at that stage of the curve. Arsenal have just lost Bukayo Saka and a victory does not mean a resurrection for City.

So the loss depends largely on Liverpool and that is impossible to imagine when Salah plays like that. He assisted Cody Gakpo for 2-0 and Diogo Jota for 5-0 and scored himself for 3-0.

He is a machine, a technicolor magician who moves his hips; a scalpel and an ax in one. His 17 goals and 13 assists in half a season are an absurd return, so the accountants should just pay him whatever he wants and be done with this contractual farce.

They may not have had that option with Trent Alexander-Arnold, but in a week in which Real Madrid blew him kisses, scored the fourth, contributed to Salah’s dominance on the right flank and had none of those defensive problems that we were faced with. we stop

To add to the atmosphere, Luis Díaz, adapting to a new mandate as center forward, scored the opener for his 12th goal in all competitions, and a defense that has not been perfect also kept a clean sheet.

Again, perspective. It’s West Ham. They had been on a mini-renaissance of four unbeaten matches, but Liverpool smashed them hard on the rocks.

While the defeat was predictable, the way it came about will hurt Lopetegui more, as his team could have conceded six or seven in the first half alone. Neither the staff nor the system that Lopetegui designed were worth their weight on paper.

In detail, that meant four changes from the team that beat Southampton, with Alphonse Areola brought in to cover Lukasz Fabianski’s absence due to concussion and Vladimir Coufal, Edson Alvarez and Lucas Paqueta starting. Álvarez, theoretically a midfielder, was positioned so deep that West Ham effectively played with five defenders, but if the mission was to contain, to suffocate, he failed miserably.

In the space of 15 minutes, Liverpool had attacked that backline so completely that they had three excellent chances and ultimately could not afford to convert any of them.

On another day, Slot might complain about the lack of finishing during that period, but seeing Liverpool at full speed, pushing those devastating little balls into tight corners, creating from every angle, is one of the most beautiful sights in sport.

Needless to say, Salah was central to most of that, but so was Gakpo – his ability to read the Egyptian’s intentions is an underrated facet of Liverpool’s attacking trident.

Combined, they were an enigma that West Ham never came close to solving, even if each squandered chances created by the other in a frenetic opening. Credit to Areola: he was making saves in all directions, also stopping Curtis Jones and Díaz.

Unfortunately, his sheet didn’t stay clean for long. Díaz, favorite ahead of Darwin Núñez, broke through after half an hour, after attempting a one-two with Jones and benefiting from a kind rebound from Coufal. Steadying himself with a touch, he rolled the shot into the bottom corner.

Mohammed Kudus hit the post in retaliation (it was one of only two significant West Ham attacks in the first half) before Gakpo scored to make it 2-0.

The move started with a lob over Alexis Mac Allister and some ball watching from Aaron Wan-Bissaka gave Diaz space to cut inside and find Salah. With a beautiful heel touch, he eliminated Konstantinos Mavropanos and then passed to Gakpo for the shot.

Liverpool were cruising at the time of the third, nailed by Salah after Carlos Soler had allowed himself to be robbed in midfield by Mac Allister. West Ham’s complicity in their demise was a partial story of the game, but let us not underestimate the rampant nature of Liverpool’s attacks.

If they had one sour note, beyond some minor errors from Andy Robertson, which are becoming a bit common, it was a suspected hamstring injury to Joe Gomez. The rest of the half is very easy.

The second continued the pattern, with Alexander-Arnold taking the rout to 4-0 with a shot from outside the box, assisted by a considerable deflection from Kilman, before Salah drilled a 40-yard counter through an indifferent midfield before to prepare the ball. Jack for the fifth.

A good finish, no doubt, but Lopetegui might wonder if his players were really giving their all to prevent it.

Between those blows, Kudus hit the frame a second time; If he had come in, it would have been more than his team deserved. By contrast, Liverpool are worth every point of their lead heading into 2025.