Swansea City have given their hopes of Premier League survival a huge boost by beating Liverpool in a quite incredible five-goal thriller at Anfield.
The Reds dominated the first-half but found themselves 2-0 down within seven minutes of the restart as Spanish Fernando Llorente scored twice to give the Jacks a shock lead.
But Liverpool were almost immediately back in it when Roberto Firmino pulled one back and then levelled with a finely taken volley in the box.
Jurgen Klopp’s side then looked on top, but their shambolic defending was again punished late on when Gylfi Sigurdsson capped off a quick Swansea break with the winning goal.
The result sees Swansea move from the bottom of the table to out of the relegation zone, and gives manager Paul Clement his first league win in charge.
Liverpool, meanwhile, stay third, although they could be overtaken by Arsenal should they beat Burnley on Sunday.
Supporters weren’t treated to many clear cut chances in a first-half which was largely one-way traffic, with Swansea camping all 11 men behind the ball for large parts of the 45 minutes.
Liverpool were patient in their bid to create space and a scoring chance, but few came and when they did, they were often let down by a poor touch or poor finish.
Emre Can had the Reds’ first clear chance but his headerfrom the centre of the box was sent wildly over the bar, and Adam Lallana then came close to pulling off a brilliant kick only to see his acrobatic attempt fly the top.
Swansea hardly had a sniff at in the opening half but the second-half was just minutes old when they stunned Anfield into silence and broke the deadlock in the 48th minute, after taking advantage of some comical defending from a corner.
Federico Fernande overcame the close marking of two Reds defenders to nod Sigurdsson’s corner kick down to Wayne Routledge, who trapped the ball with his back to goal and allowed Llorente to poke the ball in past a grounded Simon Mignolet.
Liverpool suddenly looked shaken and the Swans swiftly took advantage again to score their second through a powerful Llorente header.
A quick counter saw new signing Tom Carroll scamper away on the left wing, and his fine cross was thumped in by the Spaniard on 52 minutes.
But Liverpool were back in it just three minutes later with practically a carbon copy of Swansea’s goal, with this time Roberto Firmino heading well past Lukasz Fabianski from James Milner’s left-wing cross.
In just a matter of moments the momentum had switched from Liverpool, to Swansea and back again, as the Reds now looked back on top.
Jurgen Klopp made his move by swapping Coutinho for Daniel Sturridge, but still the Reds looked short of ideas, with the striker often dropping too deep in search of the ball to have any affect in and around the box.
But, after a deal of probing, the hosts finally got their break when Firmino brought Georginio Wijnaldum’s cross down on his chest in the centre of the box and fired a first-time shot into the left corner.
But there was another twist to come, as Swansea again punished Liverpool on the break to seal the win with 15 minutes remaining.
Carroll was involved again with a driving run into the box, and a deflection off the shins of Ragnar Klavan saw the ball fall to Sigurdsson, who kept his cool to slot past Mignolet.
Five minutes of added time saw Liverpool have a flurry of chances to grab another equaliser, with Fabianski Divock Origi’s shot on the turn and Lallana seeing a looping header hit the crossbar.
It was an unbelievable finish to a quite remarkable game – one which boosts Swansea’s survival chances and one which could well doom Liverpool’s hopes of catching leaders Chelsea.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
