London, Sep 20 (IANS) Liverpool maintained their flawless start to the club’s Premier League title defence with a fifth straight win, overcoming cross-town rivals Everton 2-1 in the Merseyside derby at Anfield here on Saturday.

Arne Slot’s side seized control early, as Ryan Gravenberch lifted Mohamed Salah’s pass into the net after just 10 minutes. The Dutch midfielder then turned provider before the half-hour mark, slipping in Hugo Ekitike to beat Jordan Pickford with a precise low strike.

Liverpool’s depth was underlined by the fact that 241 million-pound summer recruits, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, remained on the bench until the second half.

Everton grew into the contest and struck back after 58 minutes. Jack Grealish’s cross reached Iliman Ndiaye at the far post, who teed up Idrissa Gueye to smash home a powerful rising effort past Alisson.

They tried for the equaliser, but Liverpool thwarted their efforts and held them at bay. With Everton on the attack, it was a tense final half hour, from which the Reds emerged with the points to maintain their perfect start to the defence of the title, reports Xinhua.

Manager Arne Slot was happy to come out with full points in this match as Liverpool faced an intense period playing in two different competitions, emerging with three victories.

“This is also the reason why teams like us, Chelsea, all the ones that are playing in Europe, need a squad like this, because you need to play so many games. Again, it’s not an excuse, we have to accept it as it is, but we have had some issues, with Alexander Isak not training for four months, [Alexis] Mac Allister missing out a lot – I can go on and on and on. But the good thing is I do have the options to rotate throughout the week and the ones that played three times 90 are Virgil [van Dijk], Ibou [Konate], Mo [Salah], Ryan and Dom [Szoboszlai], the ones that are used to this intensity at this level, and again they showed up really good,” said Slot.

–IANS

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