Mohamed Salah set a new club record with a stunning finish to seal a 2—0 Champions League win for Liverpool over Bologna.
The Egyptian striker became the first Reds player to score in five consecutive Champions League/ European Cup games at Anfield as the Reds continued their perfect start to Arne Slot’s first continental campaign at the club.
An Alexis Mac Allister goal after 10 minutes and Salah’s curling effort after the break gave Liverpool all three points but not after a few worrying moments from the Serie A side.
Thijs Dallinga thought he had given the visitors an unlikely lead with a great finish past Alisson in the opening minutes, but the forward had made his run too early and was offside.
Liverpool’s opener came soon after as Salah was found down the right-hand side by Darwin Nunez, with the number 11 floating in a brilliant ball to Mac Allister who drilled home from six yards out to put Slot’s side ahead.
The Reds then had a goal disallowed in the 16th minute after Nunez had strayed offside after some tidy build up play.
With 20 minutes gone it looked like the win was a formality for Liverpool who had chances to put the game out of sight. That was before the game swung in Bologna’s favour with a 15-minute spell in which the away side didn’t look like a team that have won only once this season.
The woodwork was struck twice by the Rosso Blu, with Dan Ndoye hitting both the crossbar, after a sloppy defence header from Dominik Szoboszlai, and the post, after the otherwise excellent Ryan Gravenberch was dispossessed.
Bologna’s best chance of the half came when Kacper Urbanski found himself free in the area, only for his shot to be excellently tipped round the post by Alisson.
Liverpool started the second half under pressure from Bologna, who created some good chances, prompting Slot to make the first change of the night with Nunez being replaced by Diogo Jota on the hour mark.
The game was put to bed in the 75th minute, when Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold combined down the right-hand side, with the right back pulling off a brilliant decoy run that allowed Salah to cut inside and produce a trademark curling shot into the top right corner, leaving Lukasz Skorupski with no chance.
A second win in the reformatted competition sees Liverpool as one of seven teams from 36 on six points from two games.
Their next Champions League game is away at RB Leipzig on October 23 while Bologna have a tricky trip to the midlands to face Aston Villa who beat German giants Bayern Munich tonight.
