At Anfield on Sunday, Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez scored a spectacular goal that helped his team cruise to a 3-1 victory against a tenacious West Ham United side in the Premier League. Nunez expertly guided a volley shot into the goal just before the hour mark.
The away team got off to a strong start as Tomas Soucek had Alisson make an outstanding save with a downward header in the seventh minute, and then Michail Antonio headed a Soucek cross over when he had a golden opportunity to score two minutes later.
But the Hammers were made to regret those early missed opportunities as Mohamed Salah was brought down by Nayef Aguerd in the 15th minute for a clear penalty. The Egyptian forward then stepped up to the subsequent spot kick and smashed it home to give Liverpool the lead. The Hammers were forced to repent those early missed opportunities.
That got the home team fired up, but West Ham was still able to tie the game before halftime when Jarrod Bowen dove at the feet of Virgil van Dijk and scored with an excellent low header for his fourth goal of the season. This brought his total for the year to four.
Even though the goal was remarkably identical to the goal that James Ward-Prowse scored a week ago to put them up against Manchester City, it was not enough to earn them anything from the game.
Nunez eventually got on the book when he pounced on a magnificent lofted cross from Alexis Mac Allister, much to the pleasure of the Anfield fans. Prior to this, Nunez had missed a number of quality opportunities, but this goal made up for it.
This score knocked the wind out of the sails of the Hammers, and four minutes after coming off the bench, substitute Diogo Jota was able to hook in a third goal from Virgil van Dijk’s knockdown in the 85th minute.
As a result of the victory, Liverpool is now in second place in the standings with 16 points, two behind the leaders Manchester City. West Ham, meanwhile, is in seventh place with 10 points.
After falling behind early in numerous games to start the season, Liverpool seemed to be lot more like their old selves in the victory they had on Sunday.
In a television interview after the match, Alexis Mac Allister said that the team “is working really hard and everyone can see we have improved a lot since the beginning and this is the way, and we will have to keep working.” Mac Allister made these comments.
“(It was) a really difficult match. Because we are familiar with them and their style of play, we anticipated that they would focus heavily on defense and attempt to mount a counterattack. We put in a lot of work to prepare for the game, and it paid off since we came out on top,” he said.