West Ham 0-5 Liverpool: Arne Slot’s side close out 2024 with a dominant victory at the London Stadium to extend their lead at the top of the table

There comes a time when Arne Slot discovers that the Premier League is not that simple after all. Days when it’s a bit of a slog. But as 2024 makes its way to 2025, the only question is whether a rival will be within a mile of Liverpool if such a slip occurs.

For now, we’re looking at a glorious gallop towards the title and a performance from Slot as astonishing as the collapse of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.

With an eight-point lead, they are brutally turning over all their players, this side that was sensibly in trouble when Jurgen Klopp left but instead got better. Downright remarkable, actually.

We can balance all this by saying that a 5-0 thrashing of West Ham requires perspective. Because it is. They were useless and Julen Lopetegui’s immediate future will once again be in doubt because of this recurring fact.

But it was never about them. It was about the unstoppable power of Mo Salah, of an attacking three that generated 22 chances, of a side unique in the division for lacking anything approaching a falter.

It feels incredibly unlikely that they fall from this vantage point. Of course, they have some experience in that regard: on six previous occasions when they were top of the Premier League going into the new year, they have converted just once.

But who will chase them? Nottingham forest? It’s a nice surprise, but let’s not be silly. Chelsea? According to their own manager, they are not yet at that stage of the curve. Arsenal have just lost Bukayo Saka and one win does not mean a resurrection for City.

So it is very bad for Liverpool to lose and that is impossible to imagine when Salah plays like that. He assisted Cody Gakpo for 2-0 and Diogo Jota for 5-0 and scored himself for 3-0.

He is a machine, a technicolor wizard with hip twitches; a scalpel and an ax in one. His seventeen goals and thirteen assists over half a season are an absurd return, so the accountants should just pay him what he wants and has done with this contract sham.

They may not have had such a choice with Trent Alexander-Arnold, but in a week when Real Madrid gave him kisses, he scored fourth, contributed to Salah’s dominance on the right flank and had none of those defensive problems we to stand still.

Adding to the atmosphere, Luis Diaz, adapting to a new assignment as a striker, scored the opener for his twelfth goal in all competitions, and a defense that was less than perfect also kept a clean sheet.

Again, perspective. It’s Westham. They were enjoying a mini-revival of four games unbeaten, but Liverpool hit them hard against the rocks.

While the defeat was predictable, the manner in which it is played out will hurt Lopetegui more as his side could have conceded six or seven in the first half alone. Neither the personnel nor the system Lopetegui put in place was worth its weight on paper.

In the details, that meant four changes to the side that beat Southampton, with Alphonse Areola brought on to compensate for Lukasz Fabianski’s absence due to concussion and Vladimir Coufal, Edson Alvarez and Lucas Paqueta getting starts. Alvarez, believed to be a midfielder, was based so deep that West Ham effectively played with five back players, but if the mission was to contain, to suppress, they failed miserably.

In the space of fifteen minutes, Liverpool had torn that back line so thoroughly that they had three excellent chances and ultimately could afford to take none of them.

On another day, Slot might grumble about a loose finish in that spell, but seeing Liverpool at full speed, pushing those devastating balls around tight corners, creating from all angles, is one of the greatest sights in the sport.

Needless to say, Salah took center stage for most of the match, but so did Gakpo. His ability to read the Egyptian’s intentions is an underrated facet of Liverpool’s attacking trident.

Combined, they were a conundrum that West Ham never came close to solving, even as they squandered chances created by each other in a frantic opening. Credit to Areola, he made saves in all directions and also stopped Curtis Jones and Diaz.

Unfortunately, his sheet didn’t stay clean for long. Diaz, favorite over Darwin Nunez, broke through after half an hour after attempting a one-two with Jones and benefiting from a friendly deflection off Coufal. With a touch he steadied himself and rolled the finish into the bottom corner.

Mohammed Kudus hit the post in retaliation – it was one of only two meaningful attacks from West Ham in the first half – before Gakpo made it 2-0.

The move started with a lob over the top from Alexis Mac Allister and some ball-watching from Aaron Wan-Bissaka gave Diaz space to cut inside and find Salah. With a nice touch from his heel he took out Konstantinos Mavropanos and then passed to Gakpo for the goal.

Liverpool were cruising speed by the time of the third, nailed by Salah after Carlos Soler allowed himself to be robbed by Mac Allister in midfield. West Ham’s complicity in their demise was part of the story of the match, but let’s not underestimate Liverpool’s rampant attacks.

If they had one sour note, apart from a few minor misjudgments from Andy Robertson that are becoming somewhat common, it was a suspected hamstring injury for Joe Gomez. The rest of the half a breeze.

The second followed the pattern, with Alexander-Arnold taking the defeat to 4-0 with a drive from outside the area, assisted by a significant deflection off Kilman, before Salah went on a 40-yard counter through an indifferent midfield before lined up. Jota for the fifth.

Certainly a nice finish, but Lopetegui might wonder whether his players really gave everything to prevent this.

In between those hits, Kudus hit the frame for the second time. If he had gone in, it would have been more than his team deserved. In contrast, Liverpool are worth every point of their lead until 2025.