Liverpool moved back to the top of the Premier League with a 2-0 victory at struggling Burnley as Manchester United gave their fans some Boxing Day cheer by rallying to beat Aston Villa 3-2.
Liverpool have now won all six of their Premier League games on Boxing Day under Juergen Klopp and while three points always looked likely against Burnley, it was not until substitute Diogo Jota’s 90th-minute goal that the points were sealed.
Darwin Nunez’s precision finish after six min-utes gave Liverpool a flying start — his first Pre-mier League goal for almost two months. Liverpool had goals by Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott ruled out after VAR checks and Mohamed Salah rattled the crossbar as the visitors dominated.
But 19th-placed Burnley rallied in the second half and there was a sense of relief for Klopp when a sweeping move ended with Jota slotting in from a tight angle late on.
Liverpool overtook Arsenal to move into first place with 42 points from 19 games. Arsenal are on 40 ahead of their London derby with West Ham United on Thursday.
“Whatever the outside world thinks, it is really intense — and coming here and playing the game we played is absolutely exceptional,” Klopp told reporters.
“It’s exceptional as well that we didn’t score more goals… actually, we did but for different reasons they took them away.”
On hitting the top, Klopp said: “42 points, that’s really pleasing, to be honest. That’s really cool because the first part of the season (is) done and it was absolutely alright what we did. Not perfect but it was alright.”
At Old Trafford, United were in danger of an-other damaging defeat when goals from John McGinn and Leander Dendoncker put Villa in control by half-time at Old Trafford.—Agencies
