The end is near, isn't it? Liverpool were barely troubled by any West Bromwich Albion set-piece and even scored off a set-piece against them. But, the bigger picture is crucial. It was another massive win for the Reds in the race for the top four in the Premier League, as they eked out a 1-0 victory.
Roberto Firmino’s header from Lucas Leiva’s flick-on in first-half stoppage time was enough to hand Jurgen Klopp’s side the victory.
This was the first time that Liverpool had won at The Hawthorns in ages, and Tony Pulis’s first loss against Liverpool in a home game, since he got promoted with Stoke City in the 2008-09 season. Here are the main talking points from the game, as Liverpool went back up to third place in the Premier League.
#1 Liverpool can eke out ugly wins
Liverpool were nowhere near their best but still managed to get the win. For Klopp, it would feel nice to say that, given that it was talked about as the biggest Achilles Heel for this side.
Today, Liverpool were able to deal with most things West Brom threw at them. But it is important for them to not get carried away by this win. Yes, it was talked about as the Reds’ toughest remaining game this season, but West Brom offered barely anything until the last 10 minutes.
West Brom were set up to keep a clean sheet, that Pulis so loves. That meant that they had to sacrifice their attacking ambitions. A midfield of Claudio Yacob, Darren Fletcher and Jake Livermore was never going to offer any kind of creativity, and so it proved.
Until James McClean and James Morrison came on in the second half, West Brom looked woefully short of ideas in the final third.
But that didn’t prevent them from almost taking the lead midway through the first half. Nacer Chadli had an amazing opportunity from six yards out, but he completely missed his kick to give the Reds a reprieve, and it was a reprieve that they capitalized on.
#2 Simon Mignolet deserves credit
He has got a lot of flak over the last few years, and rightly so, but in recent games, Mignolet has proved why Klopp regards him as Liverpool’s no. 1 goalkeeper. After pulling off a couple of miraculous saves to help Liverpool win against Stoke last weekend, Mignolet came up with another hugely critical save to deny Matt Phillips when he was one-on-one.
Salomon Rondon had played Phillips through and he was one-on-one with the Belgian, but Mignolet spread himself well, and made the obstacle for Phillips as big as he could.
His shot-stopping has always been pretty good, at leasy it has not been questioned too much. The big change recently has been the way he has dealt with crosses into the box. He has shown a lot more conviction, whether he has caught them or punched them away.
That was important for Liverpool against a side like West Brom whose biggest weapon is their ability to put dangerous crosses into the box and get their big men to attack them.
Today, they were not able to get their crosses right too often. In the last few minutes though, they did, and Mignolet was strong as he came out and punched the ball out of danger.
#3 Roberto Firmino
In an analogy to recent Liverpool teams, Firmino is closest to Dirk Kuyt. His work-rate, desire and ability to score crucial goals are exactly what the Dutchman provided to Liverpool in a distinguished career at Anfield. But Firmino’s positional sense is better than Kuyt's and he brings the skills that any Brazilian would.
Today, Firmino was the best player on the pitch, by a countrymile. He held the ball up in West Brom's half, but it was almost never down to his physical strength. He got into difficult areas of the pitch to receive the ball. By difficult areas, we are talking about areas where West Brom players were present in numbers.
But that did not deter Firmino, he played his way through those situations and came away with the ball still at his feet. He kept evading tackles from West Brom defenders and kept getting Divock Origi and Philippe Coutinho into play.
He took his goal brilliantly, as he popped up in a goalscoring position, as he does so often. James Milner’s free-kick wasn’t the greatest. Lucas hopefully flicked it on from the edge of the area. Ideally, West Brom should have defended that, but Firmino got in on the blind side of Craig Dawson to slot an easy header past Ben Foster.
He should have had an assist too, but James Milner missed what was an easy volley from a few yards out.
#4 Divock Origi's hold-up play
It is an aspect of his game that he often gets criticised for, but today, Origi's strength and pace came to the fore against Gareth McAuley and Jonny Evans. He was strong aerially as well, which helped him hugely on the day, against the massive structures that the West Brom defenders are.
But what Origi showed was not the hold-up play of a traditional no. 9. He was brilliant with the ball at his feet in the West Brom half, which helped buy some time for the Liverpool defenders defenders. His pace and trickery were often too much from McAuley and Evans, who ended up fouling him on several occasions.
Given his chance in Sadio Mane's absence, Origi is making full use of it. It was his trickery that helped his turn past Evans and win the free-kick which led to the only goal of the game.
#5 The game should have been killed off before it actually ended
Liverpool had two gilt-edged opportunities with James Milner and Alberto Moreno both missing easy chances to put the Reds 2-0 ahead. Some terrific play between Gini Wijnaldum and Firmino set the Brazilian free on the right flank. He provided an inch-perfect cross for Milner to smash a volley home from a few yards out but it was skied.
Milner must be credited for making the run into the area late, but that finish left a lot to be desired. It would have been his first non-penalty goal of the season. Moreno's chance was arguably even easier.
Ben Foster had come up for a WBA set-piece and the ball fell to Moreno, who ran for a few yards, before taking a shot from around 40 yards out. All he had to do was shoot the ball straight into an empty net, but the shot curled out wide.
Eventually, there was no damage done, but it would have done a world of good for Moreno's confidence if he had scored that.
