Mohamed Salah ended his 10-game Premier League goal drought, but Liverpool slipped to a 2-1 loss to bottom side Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The game played at Molineux on Tuesday proved a blow to the premiership defending champions’ Champions League qualification hopes.
Liverpool has 48 points from 29 games and are fifth in the table, while Wolves’ recent improvement has seen them move to 16 points from 30 matches.
Victory for Chelsea at Aston Villa on Wednesday will see champions Liverpool drop to sixth in the table following a ninth defeat of the campaign.
They have not lost 10 league games in a season for a decade.
There is no doubt Wolves have improved under manager Rob Edwards, and they scored late goals through Rodrigo Gomes and Andre either side of a strike by Salah as a dull game came to life in the final 15 minutes.
Edwards has brought out some fight in Wolves as they recorded back-to-back wins over top five teams following their weekend win over Villa, but Liverpool put in another meek display.
The teams will meet at the same venue on Friday for their FA Cup fifth-round tie.
In another EPL comeback feat, Everton shrugged off a seven-match winless run at their new Hill Dickinson Stadium with a 2-0 victory over Burnley on Tuesday boosting their chances of European qualification.
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Leeds United’s Premier League relegation fears, however, deepened with a 1-0 home defeat by Sunderland.
James Tarkowski’s first-half header and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s second half shot gave eighth-placed Everton their first home win for almost three months to put them on 43 points, two behind sixth-placed Chelsea.
Fifteenth-placed Leeds had the chance to move nine points clear of 18th-placed West Ham United but missed out as Sunderland took the points thanks to a second-half penalty converted by Habib Diarra at a raucous Elland Road.
Leeds had seen a goal by Joe Rodon ruled out for offside shortly before Sunderland’s penalty, awarded after a VAR check for a handball by Ethan Ampadu.
The win put promoted Sunderland on 40 points, 15 ahead of the relegation zone, and seemingly safe.
Bournemouth and Brentford drew 0-0 — a result that moved Bournemouth into the top half and left Brentford seventh.
Everton’s move out of their historic Goodison Park home to a state-of-the-art arena next to the River Mersey has elevated the club’s income, but wins have been hard to come by there.
But David Moyes’s side turned on the style to comfortably dispose of second-from-bottom Burnley.
Defender Tarkowski broke the deadlock against his former club in the 32nd minute with a thumping header from James Garner’s in-swinging delivery.
The hosts doubled their lead on the hour when Iliman Ndiaye sent Dewsbury-Hall clear to dink a finish over Martin Dubravka for his sixth league goal of the season.
Idrissa Gueye almost made it 3-0 with a curling effort that smacked against the crossbar.
Burnley’s 18th league defeat of the season left them eight points from the safety zone with nine games remaining.
Reuters/NAN
