Marseille 0-3 Liverpool: Reds take huge step towards Champions League last 16 with comfortable victory – as Mohamed Salah gives Arne Slot’s side something they’ve lacked after AFCON return, writes LEWIS STEELE

Arne Slot spent his pre-match press conference in France talking about how he thought Marseille boss Roberto De Zerbi is ‘one of the best managers in the world’ and batting off a bizarre question over whether he thought Xabi Alonso would replace him as Liverpool boss.

Clearly, Slot is not exactly flavour of the month right now – but there are many merits to his management and one at the very top of that list should be his recent wins away from home in Europe, this one coupled with playing Inter Milan off the park in San Siro last month.

Both venues are fraught and boast a febrile atmosphere, especially the unwelcoming cauldron of Stade Velodrome. Many teams would come here and wilt amid the unsettling noise but Liverpool did not and created chance after chance to undo their French hosts.

While they were still let down at times by poor finishing that made the scoreline tighter than it perhaps should have been, the Reds took a giant step forward in their bid to make the Champions League top eight after Dominik Szoboszlai’s audacious under-the-wall free-kick.

The win means Liverpool’s unbeaten streak has now stretched to 13 matches – lucky for some – as Facundo Medina and Geronimo Rulli both diverted a Jeremie Frimpong into their own goal to put the Reds two goals ahead and on their way to a vital, well-deserved victory.

To make things better, Slot has now seemingly navigated the trickiest month of his tenure: playing without star man Mohamed Salah and, before that, dealing with the Egyptian’s explosive comments that threatened to push the club into a player-versus-manager civil war.

Salah was back after his exploits at the Africa Cup of Nations and, while he did not exactly set the world alight on his return, the 33-year-old just inserted a semblance of balance and calm to a team that has perhaps lacked both of those things in recent weeks.

He had some bright moments on his return to the team and how he has been missed, given the amount of chances Liverpool have been creating without return, with Florian Wirtz in particular stepping up in recent weeks as the mercurial midfielder his price-tag suggested he would be.

After a first half that followed a similar theme – Slot’s men dominant without making it count – we were soon wondering what the French phrase was for ‘draft excluder’.

Marseille could have done with one in first-half stoppage time here. And not because there was a chilly maritime breeze heading into this stunning stadium from the nearby Vieux-Port on the tip of the Mediterranean Sea.

Rulli, the Argentine goalkeeper once on Manchester City’s books, spent an age arranging his defenders for a free-kick – only to forget to station one of his troops lying down to stop the old under-the-wall cheeky one.

As silly as it looks for the poor soul to pull the short straw and be told to lie down, it works. A bit like an insurance policy on a phone – if you take it out then you probably won’t ever need it but, without it, you leave yourself open to a punishment.

We must equally praise Szoboszlai for the ingenuity and criticise the goalkeeper for a shoddy effort to prevent the shot, which was not exactly a howitzer effort like the Hungarian’s failed penalty against Barnsley last week. Rumour has it the Anfield crossbar is still rattling.

But it was a crucial goal at a time where Liverpool’s performance had all bark but no bite. The first half was populated with ‘nearly’ moments for a side who knew they had already qualified for the play-off round of this competition at least due to Tuesday’s results.

 

They continued to pepper Rulli’s goal after the break, with Wirtz forcing a strong save and Hugo Ekitike hitting the woodwork before Frimpong was the catalyst for ensuring all three points would be going back to Merseyside.

The Dutch wing back burst down the right wing, rode a few challenges and looked for a team-mate in the six-yard box only for Medina and Rulli to both divert it into their own goal.

The ultras behind the goal, who before the match had unveiled a tribute to The Beatles with a beautiful tifo, were soon silenced.

Szoboszlai, meanwhile, has been the shining light in a rather grey season overall for Liverpool where more headlines have led with negativity than positivity, in complete contrast to this time last year. The Hungarian has his eyes on a future role as club captain.

After all, it is traits like being able to tip tight games in his team’s favour, aside from the many leadership skills, that another No 8 used to do at Liverpool in Steven Gerrard, who scored a brace on the Reds’ last visit here way back in 2008.

The Reds made the quarter-final that season but, on this evidence, Slot and Co can go deep into this year’s competition, too.

It is not quite ‘book flights to the Budapest final’ territory, but they certainly look at their best on the continental stage having already beaten Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid at home – and with accomplished away wins at the cauldron-like atmospheres of Inter Milan and Marseille.

Although it has been a sub-par season in the league, Europe – as it so often has been over the decade for this club – could be a goldmine.

Substitute Cody Gakpo added a third in injury time with a nice finish into the far corner.