It was a night that Harvey Elliott lived his dream as his Champions League debut ended on a winning note thanks to Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah finding the net in quick succession.
Just over two months after their last Champions League outing at the San Siro and Jurgen Klopp‘s Reds were back, this time with a chance to put one foot in the quarter-finals.
And while it may have taken Liverpool 75 minutes to open the scoring, they were not lucky – as some may look to claim – with Inter having failed to have even one shot on target.
Firmino and Salah led the way with two fine finishes to hand the advantage to the Reds for the second leg at Anfield in three weeks’ time, but the job is far from over.
Inter will have nothing to lose on Merseyside but a “very, very good performance” from Liverpool did make for “happy days” on Wednesday night.
“I think also one of the messages before the game was, ‘You need to be ready to suffer, you need to be ready to do the hard work’ and we definitely did,” Man of the Match Virgil van Dijk told BT Sport.
“It’s a very, very good performance, a clean sheet and well, happy days.”
And it was a particularly happy day for 18-year-old Elliott, with his European debut coming in the XI in another show of unwavering faith from Jurgen Klopp.
Elliott got 60 minutes under his belt in his first start on return from injury and the occasion was not lost on the youngster, who only less than four years ago travelled to Kyiv to watch the Reds in the final:
He really is living the dream.
And where were plenty of content Reds after the 90 minutes, but the message was clear from all: it is “only half time…”
The job is, indeed, only half done but before Liverpool can finish it they have five games across the Premier League, League Cup and FA Cup to see to before then.
Each game is as important as the next and the Reds have momentum on their side to tick off each box as it comes. Up the Reds!
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