Photo: Reuters

There was a moment, after Michail Antonio had pulled one back for West Ham just before the hour mark to make it 3-1, when you could have been forgiven for thinking Liverpool were on the brink of yet another preposterous, mind-melting collapse—the sort that, under Jurgen Klopp’s mostly brilliant reign, has too often marred what should have been a glorious victory for the Reds and their legions of followers.

Of course, that sort of fatalistic thinking is exactly what Klopp has sought to eradicate from the mentality of both his players and the fan base that passionately yet nervously watches them every week. And on this instance, on a sunny late February day at Anfield, it was proven entirely needless. The Reds were always going to win this game against a David Moyes side populated by too many footballers whose creaky legs have seen better days; they just needed to go out there and actually do the business.

The irrepressible Mo Salah almost made it 1-0 to the home side less than two minutes after kickoff, and before even 10 minutes had passed one suspected the contest was headed toward slaughterhouse territory—West Ham were simply giving Liverpool too much space in which to operate.

But it was in the 10th minute when Emre Can, attempting to head the ball back to his own defender, guided it into Marko Arnautovic’s path, and West Ham had a two-on-two break that Can was forced to track back and snuff out himself (which he did, and well). And in the 15th, Arnautovic again found himself with tons of space in the Liverpool half; he took on Joel Matip and fired a shot that beat Loris Karius, but not the crossbar. (Note: I was mistaken; Karius actually got a hand on Arnaurtovic’s shot, which deflected it onto the crossbar. Excellent goalkeeping.)

Those two moments took place during arguably West Ham’s only threatening spell of the game; before long, their strategy of attempting to press Liverpool’s goalkeeper and backline and force the Reds to go long simply gave way to the superiority of their opposition. Liverpool found their breakthrough shortly before the half-hour mark, as they piled on the pressure and were rewarded with three corner kicks in short succession—the third of which Can headed into the back of the West Ham net to make it 1-0.

That was the scoreline the Reds carried into the break after a first half that was marked by their emphasis on the left side of the pitch, where James Milner and Andrew Robertson ran the show (they were Liverpool’s most prolific passers in the first half). It was a strategy perhaps geared toward exploiting the aged faculties of Pablo Zabaleta and James Collins, or possibly sucking the Hammers in on that side with a view to freeing up Salah on the opposite, weak side—on several occasions, Can tried to do exactly that with lofted balls over the top toward Liverpool’s prolific wide forward. In any case, it resulted in Milner proving hugely influential and Robertson continuing to impress in a way almost no one could have expected only a few short months ago.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain spent most of the first half alternating between anonymity and ineffectiveness, but he and the rest of his team turned it on in the second. It was his scrappy, slaloming run on 50 minutes that set Salah up for the goal that made it 2-0 to Liverpool—a brilliant, placed finish akin to several of the many other goals that Salah has put away this season, this one nutmegging Aaron Cresswell and rolling past goalkeeper Adrian in almost nonchalant fashion. Chamberlain shot wide several minutes later, his darting run through the heart of the West Ham defense fed by a delicious ball pinged along the carpet by Trent Alexander-Arnold. And in the 57th, Roberto Firmino—the man whose spirit and personality has in many ways come to define the very essence of this Liverpool side—found himself free to receive a floated Emre Can ball. Through on goal, he took an effortless touch to beat the charging Adrian, and with an open net at his disposal made it 3-0 in glorious, no-look fashion.

Then came the Antonio goal, slotted past Karius roughly one minute after he had come on for an ineffective Manuel Lanzini (in Lanzini’s defense, he has just returned from injury). After the aforementioned, momentary lapse in confidence, the Reds did a brilliant job of seeing the contest out, crafting several chances that they could have done better to put away. Despite their profligacy, Liverpool showed great maturity in their patience; for stretches they simply kept the ball, content to take the wind out of West Ham’s sails and depriving them of any opportunity to threaten in transition. Two minutes after he had squandered a clear-cut chance, created by Chamberlain, to make it 4-1 by hitting the post, Sadio Mane did just that—benefitting from a wonderful piece of play by Firmino and Robertson down the left-hand side of the box, Robertson eventually centering it for a Mane layup.

Last season, Mane cut the figure of a man with ice-cold water coursing through his veins, a bastion of self-confidence and determination whose frightening physical talents would scare the life out of opposition fullbacks. This season, it’s been very different; the hamstring injury sustained in the autumn seemed to sap his confidence in his own body, while that miss against Everton in December, by many accounts, damaged his self-believe even further.

When he hit the post on 74 minutes on Saturday, one feared yet another setback for Sadio. When he took his very next opportunity to make it 4-1 and put the final nail in West Ham’s coffin, he sent a message that we needn’t worry. These Reds know what they’re about and they know what they can do. At this point, it’s going to take more than what David Moyes’ West Ham could muster to get the better of them.

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What do you get when two teams near the top of the table, led by tacticians who pride themselves on Teflon defensive records and have a predilection for playing their attacking football on the counterattack, take each other on at the business end of the season with a whole lot to lose?

You get the sort of cagey affair that has come to define Manchester United versus Chelsea in recent years—though the fact that Jose Mourinho is usually involved in some capacity undoubtedly has something to do with it. Sunday’s clash at Old Trafford was no exception; while the game started with great intensity and Alvaro Morata almost opened the scoring in the first few minutes (he was unlucky to hit the crossbar), it settled into that very familiar pattern after the opening quarter-hour.

Eden Hazard was brilliant, no matter what young Scott McTominay tried to do with the man-marking brief he was given. Hazard was the most influential player on the pitch in the first half and created the opening goal of the contest when, on the counterattack, he held the ball up, turned and fired a filthy reverse pass that found Willian on the underlap, through on goal.

The Brazilian slotted it past David De Gea to make it 0-1 to Chelsea on 32 minutes, the Blues making their superiority in the game up to that point count. Chelsea were simply the better side; they showed endeavor and purpose on the ball while United seemed ponderous and directionless, stifled every direction they looked.

Alexis Saanchez was nominally on the right of a United front three, but in reality he drifted wherever he pleased as Romelu Lukaku, up top, and Anthony Martial, on the left, held higher positions that often saw them form a front two. As did Paul Pogba, who had the protection of Nemanja Matic, in his usual pivot role, and McTominay enabling him to push forward as he desired. It was an odd, unorthodox setup—one that almost looked 4-2-2-2-ish at times—but it paid off in the 39th minute when a bit of interplay between Sanchez, Martial and Lukaku freed up the big Belgian frontman in the Chelsea box to equalize.

Lukaku’s goal changed everything; it gave United a foothold in a contest they looked demonstrably second-best in up to that point, and they emerged in the second half a much more confident, cohesive side. Jesse Lingard did what he does—that is, win games for Manchester United—in the 75th minute, and United did what a Jose Mourinho side should do and killed off the last 15 minutes of the match to see home the three points.

This one could hurt for Chelsea. They’re now in fifth place in the league on 53 points, two behind 4th-place Tottenham, and up next is a trip to the Etihad to face champions-elect Manchester City.

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At Wembley, the champs-in-waiting took on Arsenal in the League Cup final, with Arsene Wenger seeking the only domestic trophy he’s yet to win in English football. Arsenal lined up with three center-backs in a 3-5-1-1 that, in practice turned out to be more 5-4-1. That’s because they were more than happy to let City have the ball, with Arsenal sitting deep and taking the long view that—if they defended well and waited for the right opportunities—they might just find themselves lifting the trophy at the end.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had a huge chance to make it 1-0 to the Arsenal on seven minutes, but couldn’t put it away. A little more than 10 minutes later, Shkodran Mustafi tried to get away with a laughably poor piece of play that you’ve surely seen by this point, enabling Sergio Aguero to get behind the Arsenal defensive line and chip David Opsina to give City the advantage. From there, the rest felt pretty inevitable.

It’s no secret that Arsenal are usually at their best when on the front foot, pressing and taking the game to their opponents—as they did in their majestic 2-0 win over Tottenham at the Emirates in November. Some may say that’s a death wish against City, but surely it’s better than just sitting deep and waiting for Guardiola’s team to have their way with you. With the exception of the indomitable Latics of Wigan, there’s only English side that’s managed to beat City this season, and they didn’t do it by turtling.

It all reached a low point after Vincent Kompany deflected an Ilkay Gundogan shot into the net to make it 2-0 to City just before the hour mark. As Danny Welbeck stripped out of his warmups and made his way to the touchline to enter the game, his teammates were busy exhibiting an abhorrent piece of game management—the kind of shitshow that you should never see at this level. Unable to hold onto the ball, incapable of sticking a foot in on their opposition and kicking it into touch to allow the sub, they simply sat back and watched as City tore them apart.

It was training session stuff by the time David Silva made it 3-0 in the 65th minute, City having ended the contest before Welbeck could get in the game. There’s no shame in losing a cup final to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, no matter who you are. But to do so in this manner and fashion was yet another indignity for Arsenal fans in this seemingly endless, endlessly morose Late Wenger period. How much more can they possible take? More ominously, how much further could they possibly fall?

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It was a Super Sunday afternoon if you enjoy your continental football.

In a top six clash in La Liga, Atletico Madrid made their way to the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan to take on Sevilla in a game that your writer, admittedly, did not watch (but only because there was so much else that commanded the attention). Antoine Griezmann scored a hat trick as Atleti found themselves up 0-5 after 81 minutes, only for Sevilla to pull two consolation goals back to end it at 2-5. Atleti now find themselves seven points behind first-place Barcelona and, if they realistically want a chance at winning this title, will have to beat Barca at the Camp Nou next weekend.

Your writer’s attentions, meanwhile, were focused on Paris and Rome. It was a Le Classique to forget for Marseille, who were no match for the hosts and simply could not live with the threat posed by the front three of Mbappe, Cavani and Neymar. Cavani snuffed away any hopes OM may have had of a fightback on the 55th minute, receiving an audacious Neymar ball fired into the box from near the corner flag, turning and putting it away to make it 3-0.

Neymar was his usual, annoyingly magnificent self, but turned his ankle in a nasty way in a completely incidental manner with around 15 minutes left. He was stretchered off, and now his status for the second leg of PSG’s European Cup tie versus Real Madrid (at the Parc des Princes, with the hosts down 1-3) seems very much in doubt.

Meanwhile, in the Eternal City, the Rinolution continued. AC Milan found themselves outshot 10-1 at halftime at the Stadio Olimpico, but one assumes Gennaro Gattuso did his thing and tore into his players in the changing room, because they came out guns blazing after the break. The kid Patrick Cutrone continued his fine form and scored the opener on 48 minutes, after a neat passage of play that found Milan’s attackers with way too much space in the Roma half. Davide Calabria made it 2-0 on 74 minutes, playing a tidy one-two with Nikola Kalinic (who came on for Cutrone) while Roma’s defenders appeared content to stand around and watch as he put it past Alisson Becker.

Even Fabio Borini being his usual self and skying an open-netter in stoppage time couldn’t ruin the mood for Milan, who have won five straight in all competitions and are now seven points behind Madonnina rivals Inter for the final Champions League qualification spot in Italy. (And guess who they just happen to be playing next week?) The win was also a nice birthday present for Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma; he is now, freakishly, 19 years of age.

Elsewhere, Bundesliga bottom side FC Koln shocked RB Leipzig with a second-half flurry, scoring two goals in seven minutes to leave Leipzig with a 1-2 victory. And it was sweet, sweet revenge in the Rhone-Alpes; after Nabil Fekir rubbed in Lyon’s 0-5 November win at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in unforgettable, inflammatory fashion, St. Etienne got some semblance of revenge on their rivals this time around—with none other than Mathieu Debuchy scoring a 90th minute equalizer as Les Verts left Lyon with a point.