Liverpool's manager Arne Slot, right, greets Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk at the end of the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Chelsea at Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, on Oct. 20.Jon Super/The Associated Press
Liverpool is looking more and more like Manchester City’s main title rival after beating resurgent Chelsea 2-1 on Sunday to stay top of the Premier League table.
After City needed an injury-time header from John Stones to beat last-place Wolves 2-1 in the early kickoff, Liverpool answered with a composed performance at Anfield to hand Chelsea its first league loss since the opening round.
Having seen third-place Arsenal lose at Bournemouth on Saturday to raise questions about the Gunners’ title hopes, Liverpool and City took full advantage to build a small gap atop the standings. Arne Slot’s team leads on 21 points from eight games, one ahead of City and four above Arsenal.
It was Slot’s most significant win at Anfield so far and prevented Chelsea from moving into third place, with the visitors remaining sixth instead.
“Many other games were hard but this might have been the hardest, maybe, because of the amount of quality players they [Chelsea] have and the structure they have,” Slot said. “We had to fight really hard to get this one over the line.”
Curtis Jones orchestrated the win for Liverpool, earning a penalty for Mohamed Salah’s first-half opener and then scoring himself to restore the host’s lead in the 51st minute, shortly after Nicolas Jackson had equalized for Chelsea.
Jones also thought he had earned a second penalty in first-half injury time, but it was overturned after a VAR review judged that Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sánchez got the ball before bundling over the Liverpool player.
But he capped a stellar performance by beating the offside trap to get on the end of a ball into the box from Salah and slot in the winner.
“As soon as Mo had the ball I made the run, but it bounced so I had to have a touch, and then thankfully it went in,” Jones said.
Liverpool was the last team other than City to win the title, in 2019-20, and pushed Pep Guardiola’s team to the very end several times under Jürgen Klopp before finishing just fifth two years ago and a distant third last season.
In Slot’s first season in charge, though, the Reds are looking like credible challengers again and have now won 10 of 11 games in all competitions.
And City is looking far from unbeatable, needing another last-gasp goal from Stones to avoid a third league draw in four games against a Wolves team that only has one point so far.
It also needed a VAR intervention for the goal to stand, as referee Chris Kavanagh was called to the sideline monitor to review whether Bernardo Silva was interfering with goalkeeper José Sá from an offside position.
“We are not used to winning games at the end,” said Guardiola, whose team has won four straight league titles by regularly overwhelming most opponents. “It is a good flavour for us.”
It also extended City’s unbeaten streak to a club-record 31 league games, beating a mark Guardiola’s team had set in 2018.
With prolific striker Erling Haaland held scoreless for a third straight league game, City’s defenders provided the goals instead after Jorgen Strand Larsen had given the hosts a surprising early lead in the seventh minute.
Josko Gvardiol curled in a superb right-foot shot from outside the area to equalize in the 33rd minute but Wolves then repelled wave after wave of City attacks before the late intervention from Stones, who also netted a last-gasp equalizer against Arsenal in the eighth minute of injury time last month.
“These moments don’t come often for us,” Stones said. “We’ve come up with a few over the years and today was one of them.”
Chelsea scores wonder goal in WSL win
LONDON Chelsea’s Johanna Rytting Kaneryd crowned an electric display with two goals, including a world-class effort, as it beat Tottenham Hotspur 5-2 to go second in the Women’s Super League on Sunday, with a game in hand over leaders Manchester City.
City had to come from behind to beat Aston Villa earlier in the day to move to 13 points from their five games, but Rytting Kaneryd and Chelsea kept the pressure on with an emphatic victory to make it four wins out of four.
Nilden continued to be the centre of attention with an own goal just before the break, but a stunning volley from Rytting Kaneryd in the 70th minute ensured she would grab most of the headlines.
Irrepressible on the right wing, she won a penalty minutes later that fellow winger Guro Reiten thumped off the left-hand post, but fullback Sandy Baltimore followed up to add Chelsea’s fourth.
Eveliina Summanen netted a late free kick for Spurs to make it 4-2, but Rytting Kaneryd had the last word with a brilliant solo raid that ended with a thunderous left-foot shot past Becky Spencer to make it 5-2 in second-half stoppage time.
Earlier on Sunday, interim Arsenal boss Renee Slegers steered her side to a 2-0 win over bottom team West Ham United, making the most of the 1-1 draw between Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester United on Saturday to keep in touch with the title-chasing group. United and Brighton remain third and fourth respectively on 10 points, with the Gunners two points behind them in fifth. An early goal for Leicester City gave it a 1-0 home win over second-from-bottom Everton, and Crystal Palace continued their good start to the season with a 1-1 draw away to Liverpool.