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Three talking points from Liverpool's win against West Ham

Mohamed Salah scored a brace while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored in his first Premier League start for Liverpool, while Joel Matip added the other in the Reds' 4-1 win over West Ham.

West Ham 1 Liverpool 4

Bengaluru, November 5: Liverpool won their third successive game with a three-goal margin as they thrashed Slaven Bilic’s relegation-threatened West Ham United at the Olympic Stadium in London.

Mohamed Salah scored a brace while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored on his first Premier League start in a Liverpool shirt. Joel Matip scored the other goal while Manuel Lanzini found the back of the net for the Hammers.

Here are the talking points from the Premier League game of Saturday (November 4) evening:

Jurgen Klopp surprises everyone with formation

Liverpool constantly changed their formation against West Ham United making things extremely difficult for the Hammers.

Expecting a 4-3-3 it was evident within the opening moments that Liverpool were adopting a 4-4-2; however, as Klopp has mentioned on several occasions, players’ starting points are purely that.

Just prior to Salah’s opening goal Liverpool had lined up as 4-2-3-1 in possession and 3-4-3 without the ball; alternating to a 2-4-4 once Joel Matip had grabbed the second.

In short, for the opening 45 minutes, West Ham had no clue about the Liverpool system and were punished by one lightning quick counter attack and another goal from a corner.

Salah on song once again, Mane back

With his brace against West Ham, Mohamed Salah now has 12 goals in all competitions, seven of them in the Premier League.

Many were sceptical when Liverpool paid £36.9m for the Egyptian but the former Chelsea flop has already proved that he is a much-improved player now and he looks on course to score around 25 goals this season which is incredible for a winger.

Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp surprised everyone by naming Sadio Mane in the starting XI after stating that he might make a cameo appearance from the bench for 15 to 20 minutes.

Mane and Salah combined really well, and Liverpool will hope that the duo can stay fit for the rest of the season.

Bilic might have managed his last game at West Ham

Well, you cannot question the patience of the West Ham board. Since the last season, the Hammers are struggling with inconsistency but they still kept their trust in Slaven Bilic who did a great job for them in the 2015-16 season.

However, the thrashing at the hands of Liverpool might be the last nail in the coffin. Things don't look good for the Hammers and if there was a different owner, Bilic would have been sacked a long time ago.

Story first published: Sunday, November 5, 2017, 11:38 [IST]
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