Liverpool moved an incredible 19 points clear at the top of the Premier League as Mohamed Salah and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain secured a 2-0 win at West Ham on Wednesday.
Jurgen Klopp’s side have turned the title race into a procession and the runaway leaders saw off struggling West Ham to make it a remarkable 23 victories from 24 league games this season.
Salah opened the scoring with a first half penalty at the London Stadium and Oxlade-Chamberlain wrapped up Liverpool’s 15th successive league win after the interval.
Second placed Manchester City are now so far behind Liverpool that the question is not if but when the Reds clinch their first English league title since 1990.
The Reds have won 31 of their past 32 league fixtures, only dropping points in a 1-1 draw at Manchester United in October.
With 14 games left, Liverpool’s incredible run has given historic overtones to their impending title coronation.
The European and World champions are now 41 games unbeaten in the league — just eight away from the 49-match English top-flight record set by Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ across 2003 and 2004.
Matching that Arsenal team’s achievement in going an entire league season without defeat is within Liverpool’s reach, as is Manchester City’s Premier League record of 100 points.
Liverpool’s latest success on a chilly night in east London will be just a footnote when the full story of their likely title triumph is written, but they still managed to record another small piece of history.
Klopp attracted criticism for announcing he and his first-team players won’t be present for the FA Cup fourth round replay against Shrewsbury next week as it falls within the Premier League’s winter break.
Instead, Klopp will send Liverpool’s youth team to the match, but at this rate they will win the title so early that his stars will have plenty of time to put their feet up in the final weeks of the domestic season.
