Salah-inspired Liverpool beat Man City to open up 11-point Premier League lead

Liverpool took a giant stride towards the Premier League title on Sunday as a 2-0 win over Manchester City opened up an 11-point lead over Arsenal at the top of the table.

Mohamed Salah was again Liverpool's star performer as he opened the scoring with his 30th goal of the season before setting up Dominik Szoboszlai to double the lead before half-time.

"It is special. Especially when you are in the title race, it is incredible," said Salah after Liverpool's first league win at the Etihad for a decade. "Me and the big guys in the team, we need another title."

Just days after exiting the Champions League to Real Madrid, this was another sobering defeat for the dethroned English champions, who are now 20 points adrift of the leaders.

So often during Pep Guardiola's glorious reign, Liverpool have come up just short in English football's great rivalry of recent years.

However, their time to match Manchester United's record of 20 English top-flight titles now appears just months away in Arne Slot's first season in charge.

"We work every single day to achieve this and it is three months of very hard work (ahead) to maintain this," said Slot. "It is important to understand why we are where we are."

Arsenal's shock 1-0 home defeat to West Ham on Saturday had eased the pressure on Liverpool, that had built after dropping points in two of their last three games at Everton and Aston Villa.

A trip to the Etihad has for so long been the stiffest test of all, but City's defensive frailties were easily exposed and they also badly missed the presence of the injured Erling Haaland in attack.

Liverpool, by contrast, had their talisman fit and firing as Salah took his staggering tally this season to 25 goals and 16 assists in 27 Premier League appearances.

Elsewhere, Newcastle scored four goals in 11 first-half minutes as they edged a seven-goal thriller against Nottingham Forest to boost their Champions League qualification hopes with a 4-3 home win.