By Korede James
Leaders Liverpool widened their lead in the English Premier League table to 13 points after beating Newcastle United 2-0 at Anfield on Wednesday night.
Goals from Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister pushed the Reds closer to a 20th league title, with the Magpies in sixth place.
It was another match and another goal involvement for Mohamed Salah as he set up Mac Allister for Liverpool’s second goal.
The Egypt forward has now equalled his best ever Premier League campaign for goal involvements (2017/2018: 36 games, 32 goals, 10 assists, 2024/2025: 28 games, 25 goals, 17 assists).
Arne Slot’s men took the lead on 11 minutes thanks to Szoboszlai who took on Luiz Diaz’s pass with a first-time shot to fire into the back of the net.
Liverpool doubled their lead in the 63rd minute as Salah found Mac Allister in the area to score with a well-taken shot.
Also on Wednesday night, Arsenal’s title hopes suffered another setback following their 0-0 draw with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground, which left the Gunners 13 points behind Liverpool.
Both Arsenal (54 points) and Forest (48 points) maintained their positions in the league table in second and third spots respectively.
Super Eagles stars Ola Aina and Taiwo Awoniyi featured for Forest, the former playing for 90 minutes while the latter came on with five minutes left.
It was a game of very few scoring chances with Arsenal’s best opportunity falling to Ricardo Calafiori, whose 24th minute effort came off the post.
Chris Wood went close for Forest in the second half but saw his left-foot shot palmed away by David Raya.
At Old Trafford, 10-man Manchester United recovered from an early setback to beat Ipswich Town 3-2 and end a run of two straight matches without a win.
Ipswich had the opener in the fourth minute as Jaden Philogene tapped into an open net after a mix-up between Patrick Dorgu and Andre Onana.
From being behind in just four minutes into the match, United scored two quick goals in four minutes to go 2-1 up.
First a Sam Morsy own-goal pulled Ruben Amorim’s side level before a point-blank Matthijs de Ligt finish made it 2-1.
With three minutes left in the first half, January transfer signing Patrick Dorgu was shown a straight red card.
Ipswich took advantage of the sending off as Philogene got his second two minutes into first half stoppage time to make it 2-2.
But in the 47th minute, United led again through Harry Maguire who arrived in the middle of the box and headed powerfully past Alex Palmer from Bruno Fernandes’ corner.
The victory United to 14th place, while Ipswich are 18th in the table.
Also in London, Erling Haaland returned to Manchester City’s starting line-up after recovering from injury and got the only goal in the 1-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur.
Haaland struck on 12 minutes as the champions returned to fourth place, while Spurs are 13th.
The other fixture on Wednesday between Brentford and Everton ended 1-1.
RESULTS
Liverpool 2-0 Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest 0-0 Arsenal
Tottenham 0-1 Man City
Man United 3-2 Ipswich
Brentford 1-1 Everton
