By beating Nottingham Forest (3-2) Liverpool gave themselves the right to still believe in Europe on Saturday for the 32nd day of the Premier League, Leicester taking three crucial points in the race to maintain by beating Wolverhampton (2-1 ). With 50 points, the Reds are only three lengths behind in the standings on Tottenham (5th) which has a very difficult trip to Newcastle, 4th with 56 pts, on Sunday, and which must come to visit them on April 30.
Nothing was easy, however, in the face of the promoted who risk making the elevator since they fall to 19th place, with only a point behind the first non-relegation. It all happened in the second half when Liverpool opened the scoring in the 47th by Diogo Jota, after a poorly cleared corner by Forest.
A former Anfield player, Neco Williams, tied his side in the 51st minute but the Nottingham defense stopped playing completely on a free kick thinking Jota was offside, four minutes later, to leave the Portuguese restore the advantage to the locals (2-1, 55th) with his fourth goal in two matches. Very combative, Forest came back up to par thanks to Morgan Gibbs-White (2-2, 67th), but Liverpool had the last word with the inevitable Mohamed Salah, on the verge of offside, on a kick stopped by Trent Alexander-Arnold (3-2, 70th).
At the bottom of the standings, Leicester was able to recover from a goal against Wolves in play, after a huge error by Youri Tielemans 35 meters from his goals, converted by Matheus Cunha (0-1, 13th). The Foxes found the moral resources to move forward and a penalty obtained by Jamie Vardy allowed Kelechi Iheanacho to equalize before the break (1-1, 37th). After pushing a lot, it was the Belgian Timothy Castagne, fifteen minutes from the end, who scored the winning goal that allowed Leicester to get out of the red zone (17th) on goal difference ahead of Everton ( 18th) returned with a draw (0-0) from Crystal Palace.
In other matches, Brentford and Aston Villa have failed to draw a tie and sixth-placed Unai Emery’s men remain in ambush for Europe, albeit one to three games ahead of their rivals. In the middle of the day, Leeds, humiliated at home by Liverpool (6-1) last Monday, lost again to Fulham (2-1) and is only one step ahead of the red zone.
