The Reds ended their winless league run at home with a comeback victory over Dean Smith’s men on Saturday
Mohamed Salah’s equaliser against Aston Villa ended Liverpool’s run of 12 hours and 44 minutes without a goal from open play at Anfield in the Premier League.
The last time Jurgen Klopp’s side scored from open play in the English top-flight was in their 1-1 West Bromwich Albion draw where Sadio Mane opened the scoring on December 27.
In the absence of Mane from the starting XI on Saturday, Salah joined Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota in Liverpool’s frontline but Ollie Watkins broke the deadlock just before half-time with his 43rd-minute effort for Aston Villa.
After the restart, the two-time African Footballer of the Year inspired the hosts’ fightback with his 57th-minute equaliser.
The strike took Salah’s tally to 28 goals in all competitions this season, but he is 16 goals behind his best scoring return for the Reds – 44 goals in the 2017-18.
Towards the end of the encounter, defender Trent Alexander-Arnold scored a stoppage-time winning goal for Liverpool which ended their eight-match winless run at home in the English top-flight.
The triumph pushed the Reds to fourth in the league table with 52 points after 31 matches and Salah believes they can still secure qualification for the Champions League next season.
“It’s really important. There are only seven games left still, so it’s really important to win. We are fighting for fourth place, we want to play in the Champions League next season,” Salah was quoted by the club website.
“We’ll keep fighting also in the next game against [Real] Madrid. The most important thing is we just need to focus on each game – we’ll try to win all and hopefully, we can be in fourth place.”
Next up for Liverpool is that Champions League return fixture against Real Madrid at Anfield but they trail the Spanish giants 3-1.
Salah added that their 2-1 comeback victory over Aston Villa is ‘important’ to help the Reds turn around their deficit on Merseyside on Wednesday.
“Yeah, it’s really important. Especially when you’re 1-0 down, you come back and play like we did in the second half. It’s something good from the game,” he said.