Brentford handed Liverpool another setback in the title race.
Brentford handed Premier League champions Liverpool a fourth successive defeat by winning 3-2 in a thrilling match in west London.
Liverpool appeared to have ended their recent midweek slump by beating Eintracht Frankfurt 5-1 in the Champions League.
However, Arne Slot’s men were once again well below their best at the Gtech Community Stadium, and goals from Dango Ouattara and Kevin Schade gave Brentford a well-deserved 2-0 lead.
Milos Kerkez pulled back a controversial goal for the visitors in first-half stoppage time, but a controversial Igor Thiago penalty put Brentford back in control on the hour mark.
A superb strike from Mohamed Salah made for a thrilling finale, but Brentford held on to enter the first half, with Liverpool’s latest defeat dropping them to sixth place. An Arsenal victory against Crystal Palace on Sunday would see the Reds drop seven points in the title race.
The first road defeats Liverpool again
Much has been made of Liverpool’s difficulties in the face of direct football from their opponents, and these problems became apparent in the fifth minute.
Kayode’s throw arrived with radar-like pace and precision, and Kristoffer Ajer headed past Ouattara to acrobatically head home.
Liverpool had a good chance to equalize in the 20th minute, but Florian Wirtz, who had yet to score a Premier League goal, narrowly hit the left post.
Cody Gakpo then curled around an ambitious effort from the edge of the box, but it was the hosts who continued to pose the bigger threat, Jordan Henderson not far from a long-range goal against the club he won the Champions League for before Damsgaard went close, earning an excellent save from Giorgi Mamardashvili.
Yet shortly after Liverpool saw penalty appeals turned down when Gakpo went down theatrically in the area, Damsgaard scored Brentford’s second, his angular ball play outstanding playing in Schade, who slipped his effort under Mamardashvili.
Both teams finished the half irritated with referee Simon Hooper, who drew the ire of Brentford and manager Keith Andrews, who was booked for his protests after Hooper allowed the first half to continue beyond the allotted three extra minutes. The clock had passed 49 minutes when Kerkez managed to halve the deficit.
Brentford hang on
Hooper had to withdraw from proceedings before the second half due to injury, with Tim Robinson taking his place for the restart, which was quickly followed by further Brentford dominance as a busy Mamardashvili twice denied Thiago and then kept out a deflected Damsgaard effort.
The Georgia international was beaten for a third time, however, with Robinson playing a pivotal role in Brentford restoring their two-goal lead by announcing to the crowd that a Virgil van Dijk foul on Ouattara had taken place inside the box, with VAR treating it as a factual reversal, leaving the referee with no need to consult the pitchside monitor.
Thiago confidently slotted the penalty and Ouattara twice missed chances to put the game to bed, heading wide of superb crosses from Kayode and Keane Lewis-Potter.
And his profligacy allowed Salah, without a goal in six games, to give Liverpool hope by brilliantly controlling Dominik Szoboszlai’s ball and crashing over on the half-volley after Brentford had given the ball away deep in their own half.
Ouattara headed in for another brilliant Lewis-Potter delivery, and it looked like it might prove costly when seven minutes were added and an injury to Thiago inflated that figure.
The clock ticked past 100 minutes, and Liverpool came agonizingly close to equalizing at the death when Salah failed to make good contact with a cross at the far post in a miss that summed up their lack of form, with former Liverpool goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher’s subsequent save from Szoboszlai securing a famous victory for Brentford.
