Liverpool make it two wins from two in the Europa League

Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)

Liverpool secured a 2-0 victory at home to Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise in their second UEFA Europa League match.

Union approached the game full of confidence, sitting top of the Belgian Pro League after 10 matches. They fought hard and competed well for the majority of the match until the final 10 minutes, even though Liverpool had an impressive dominance of posession during the game (74%).

Liverpool played a strong team with Salah, Nunez and Jota up front. It did not take long for Salah to break free down the right before giving a perfect ball in for Nunez, who somehow put his effort wide from close range.

Liverpool thought they had made the breakthrough when Dutch midfielder Ryan Gravenberch broke through the Union defence and unleashed a thunderbolt from 20 yards out that the goalkeeper could only put into the path of Nunez who lashed it into the net. However the linesman put his flag up for offside to keep it at 0-0.

In the 44th minute a relatively tame shot from Trent Alexander from around 20 yards out bounced off the USG keeper and Gravenberch drilled it into the net to make it 1-0.

Diaz came on for Nunez at half time and his pace on the left wing tormented the visitors’ defence. Union managed however to keep the score to 1-0 until late on. In the 92nd minute Liverpool broke quickly from a Union corner with Jota winning the cleared ball in the middle of the field. Diaz ran through the middle and slided the ball back to Jota who coldly slotted the ball into the back of the net to make it 2-0 to Liverpool.