Mohamed Salah missed a second-half penalty as Liverpool lost 1–0 at Bournemouth, with a Philip Billing goal plunging them to the bottom of the Premier League table and out of the relegation zone.
A win in the first league game of the weekend saw Bournemouth move up to 16th in the table with 24 points. Meanwhile, Liverpool is fifth with 42 points after squandering a chance to close the gap on fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur to three points.
Liverpool started well, with Salah wasting an early shot toward the goal and Cody Gakpo having an effort disallowed for offside.
Bournemouth defender Jefferson Lerma also had to clear a Virgil van Dijk header off the line, but as had often happened before this season, the wheels quickly came off for the visitors.
Bournemouth’s Dango Ouattara fired wide after a one-on-one with Alisson, but Liverpool didn’t heed that warning and they paid for it in the 28th minute when he took out Van Dijk and found the ball for Billings. squared off to, who drove it home.
Former Liverpool forward Dominic Solanki added almost a second just before the break and Billing spilled into the box, but his appeal for a penalty was turned down as Bournemouth closed out the half strongly.
Klopp said after the match, “It was clear from the first second that we came here, Bournemouth are fighting to stay in the league, wonderful club, wonderful city, they want to be in it and they really do well.” “The results weren’t going in the right direction in the last few months, but the performances look different, and that’s why they’re worth three points today, that’s all.”
Diogo Jota came on for Harvey Elliott at half-time and quickly made his presence felt to save from Neto four minutes after the break.
Jota then won a penalty for Liverpool as his goal-bound header hit Adam Smith’s arm, but Salah fired his spot kick high and wide of the goal, to the horror of the traveling fans.
That miss in the 70th minute looked to be a complete failure for Liverpool, and they did precious little to threaten the Bournemouth goal, Gakpo scoring a late apt effort over the bar as his team’s attack again fell short. Done.
The home fans applauded every tackle and clearance and cheered at the final whistle as their team put some daylight between themselves and the rest of the clubs at the bottom of the table.
“[We] had to be hardworking, compact, and work for each other, as we have done so many times this season. It paid off today and the support was fantastic too,” jubilant goal-scorer Billing told broadcaster told BT Sport. ,
Klopp was left to pick up the remains of yet another poor performance from his side in a season that never really went for them.
“The places we wanted to play were super-clear, they were super-open … We didn’t use it often enough, we didn’t enjoy the challenge of facing a deep, compact side,” Klopp said. Get it.” He refused to blame the defeat on Salah’s penalty miss.
“If you score there, it doesn’t make the performance better, but it can change the result. He [Salah] scores a lot of goals, but he misses the penalty. That’s life.
“What can I say? It was never really our game. We dominated the first half, but mostly we put [the] ball at the wrong time against a compact side.”