Darwin Nunez, a striker for Liverpool, scored an outstanding goal around the hour mark to help his team cruise to a 3-1 Premier League victory over tenacious West Ham United.
In the seventh minute, Tomas Soucek’s downward header forced an incredible save from Alisson, and two minutes later, Michail Antonio headed a Soucek cross wide with the goal at his mercy.
The Egyptian forward was brought down by Nayef Aguerd in the 15th minute for a stonewall penalty, and he stepped up to score the next spot kick to give Liverpool the lead, leaving the Hammers to repent their early errors.
This gave the home team a boost, but West Ham still managed to draw even before halftime when Jarrod Bowen dove at Virgil van Dijk’s feet and scored with a beautiful low header for his fourth goal of the year.
The score was uncannily reminiscent of the James Ward-Prowse goal against Manchester City a week prior, but once more it wasn’t enough to give them a victory.
Nunez missed a few good scoring opportunities before, largely to the pleasure of the Anfield crowd, latching onto a wonderful lofted pass from Alexis Mac Allister.
The Hammers lost their momentum following that goal, and four minutes after coming off the bench, substitute Diogo Jota was able to score a third goal off Virgil van Dijk’s deflection in the 85th minute.
With the victory, Liverpool now sits second in the standings with 16 points, two points behind Manchester City, while West Ham is in seventh place with 10.
Liverpool looked much more like their old selves in the victory on Sunday after trailing in several games in the early part of the season.
“We are 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,” Alexis Mac Allister said in a post-match TV interview.
“(It was a) very tough game. We know them, we know how they play and we knew that they were going to try and defend a lot and try to counter attack. We prepared really well for the game and thank goodness we won it,” he added.
