Liverpool tore apart AFC Bournemouth‘s defence to score nine goals at the Anfield. They have now tied with Manchester United and Leicester City to hold the record of winning a Premier League game by the highest margin. This gave Jurgen Klopp‘s men their first win after a sluggish start to the Premier League season. The win lifted the Reds to the 8th position in the PL standings. 

Earlier in the game, Jurgen Klopp made a single change in the starting XI which lost to Manchester United. He brought in Fabinho Carvalho in place of James Milner. Darwin Nunez was still out due to a suspension for headbutting a player in his first match for Liverpool. Liverpool couldn’t play many of their first-choice players, with Thiago Alcantara, Diogo Jota, Joel Matip, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain out due to injuries. 

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The home team pressed from the first minute itself, as Roberto Firmino almost scored from a low through-ball. They didn’t have to wait much to score their next, as Firmino set up a beautiful ball, which Diaz steered past GK Mark Travers in a powerful header. The Reds struck again in the 6th minute, when Elliot scored the goal off a Firmino assist, into the bottom left corner of the box, to give Liverpool their second. Liverpool scored twice inside the first six minutes of a Premier League match for the first time since their match against Aston Villa in March 1996.

Liverpool’s attack intensity dropped a bit after the two goals, but not for long. They then scored two more goals in quick succession. Trent Alexander-Arnold scored the third goal of the match and a potential ‘Goal of the Month’. He shot an unstoppable ball from outside the box, from 20 yards. This also gave Firmino his hat-trick of assists within half an hour. And he also scored his first, from a wide deflection off Salah’s cross. This is the earliest the Reds have netted more than four goals inside the opening 31 minutes of a single Premier League game since February 2014 vs Arsenal, where they did so in the first 20 minutes.

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Frustrated by Liverpool’s goal-scoring spree, Bournemouth captain Adam Smith tackled Jordan Henderson to get the first yellow card of the match. Defender Virgil van Dijk then gave the Reds their fifth goal, after scoring a header off an Andrew Robertson corner. This was a record for Liverpool as they scored five goals in the first half of a single Premier League game for the first time.

Both sides made changes in the early minutes of the second half. But Bournemouth defence could not stop the goals. Just a minute into the second half, the visting team gifted Liverpool another goal, with Chris Mepham scoring an own goal. The VAR intervened, but could not do anything to change the score line. 

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Liverpool were seven up in the 62nd minute, with Firmino scoring again, this time from close range. Then Klopp substituted three players in one go including in form Firmino. This also made Firmino the first ever Liverpool player to be directly involved in four goals in the first half of a single Premier League match (1 goal, 3 assists) and the first player overall since Harry Kane’s performance in February 2017, in the game against Stoke (3 goals, 1 assist). 

The substitutions did not have any effect on the intensity of the Reds’ attack. Fabio Carvalho soon scored the eighth goal in the 80th minute, with an assist from Konstantinos Tsimikas. In the 85th minute, Luis Diaz scored from another header to make the scoreline 9-0. This was the first time that Liverpool have netted so many goals in a single top-flight game for the first time since September 1989, when they won 9-0 in a first-division game against Crystal Palace.