Liverpool, Dec 28 (IANS) Liverpool battled back from an early deficit to hammer past visiting Stoke City 4-1 and reclaim second place in the English Premier League (EPL) football competition.
The hosts' third successive victory on Tuesday brought them to 40 points from 18 matches, six points behind league leaders Chelsea and a point ahead of Manchester City, Liverpool's next opponent on Saturday, reports Efe.
Stoke, who entered the match still looking for their first-ever EPL victory against Liverpool at the Anfield Stadium, could be forgiven for thinking their luck was about to change after they took a 1-0 lead in the 12th minute thanks to a Jonathan Walters header.
But the Potters proved incapable of containing the high-octane Liverpool offence and Adam Lallana equalised for the hosts just past the half-hour mark.
Roberto Firmino made it 2-1 for Liverpool in the 43rd minute with a shot that hit both posts before going into the net.
The outcome was sealed in the 60th minute when Stoke's Gianelli Imbula put the ball in his own net while trying to intercept Divock Origi's pass down the right side.
A minute after coming on as a substitute for Belgian Origi, Daniel Sturridge took advantage of a mistake by Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross to increase the winning margin to 4-1.
After the win, Liverpool head coach J?rgen Klopp said that despite conceding an early gal, his team was confident enough to pull things back.
"Confidence is not a problem of the team at the moment. We know about our quality. We don't show it all the time, but the start of the game was really difficult because the plan of Stoke was obviously to press really high, especially with the two strikers. We were not patient enough in our passing game in these moments," Klopp told his club's website.
"In creating our moments, we again struggled a little bit with protection, with our position game. A lot of things we could have done better, but we forced two goals with our quality; they were really good and both really important," he added.
"The boys did better and scored a wonderful third goal and then Daniel closed the game -- that was really important."
