Liverpool beat Fulham in a crazy 4-3 barnburner on Sunday, wiping away a goal deficit in the game's final few minutes to take all three points and leapfrog Manchester City for second in the Premier League. All four of the Reds' goals were spectacular, from Trent Alexander-Arnold's stunner free-kick in the 20th minute to open the scoring (which later, uncharitably, went into the books as an own-goal by Fulham's keeper) to, well, Alexander-Arnold's match-winner in the 88th, when he coolly gathered a headed clearance at the very edge of Fulham's box, let the ball bounce at his feet, and rocketed a half-volley into the back of the net.
The best of the four came in the 38th minute, with the score level at a goal apiece. Fulham's Raúl Jiménez, running under a too-hurried clearance by Kenny Tete out near the touchline, made the utterly horrifying decision to head the ball back toward the middle of the pitch with no teammates anywhere nearby. It fell pretty much directly to Liverpool's Alexis Mac Allister, in an acre of empty space; he let it bounce past him, took a couple steps to gather himself, and did the following, from about 25 yards out:
Great googly moogly. That's the most gorgeous strike I've seen this season. It's the first-ever Liverpool goal for the Argentine, who came over from Brighton in the summer; he will just about have to levitate and emit visible light if he's ever going to top it. Bernd Leno, Fulham's keeper, makes a superheroic leap, but the ball knuckles away from him diabolically, and still has enough juice behind it to rock the net when it gets there. A perfectly fine and lengthy professional career can go by, filled with prolific goalscoring, and never produce a shot like that.
The Pool Boys had one other, an 87th-minute equalizer from Wataru Endo, who'd entered the game only a couple minutes earlier. Like the other three it was an absolute banger: A lovely pass over the top from Ibrahima Konate to Darwin Nunez, who headed it down to Mohamed Salah, who held off a pair of Fulham defenders and left the ball at the top of Fulham's box for Endo, who blasted it home with one touch. Alexander-Arnold's winner, a minute later, came just inside the edge of the box; that was by a couple of yards the shortest distance any of Liverpool's goals traveled. If any team in a top league scores four goals from a greater combined distance this season, I will chew up and swallow a sock.
Fulham's three goals were all normal. For this they deserved to lose.
