The day is nearing when, if he were so minded, Jürgen Klopp could copy his strategy for FA Cup replays and hand the rest of Liverpool’s league season to their second string. Games in hand are only an advantage if you win them and this one was ultimately negotiated in comfort, confirming a 19-point lead that only a wild-eyed fantasist would deem surmountable.
Nineteen points ahead; 23 wins from 24; all 19
Premier League teams defeated at least once. They are statistics that will swill around for the rest of this week but they should not dull in the telling, even if the figures are likely to grow yet more jawdropping in the months to come.
Liverpool did not please Klopp with this display and they certainly laboured in the 35 minutes before
Mohamed Salah put them ahead from the penalty spot. The number of mistakes that crept in, even once Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had doubled the lead, was enough to afford Alisson the platform to remind everyone that his excellence underpins the imperturbable machine that ploughs on in front of him. But none of it mattered too much: West Ham were allowed their moments, but this is emphatically Liverpool’s season.