Liverpool 2-0 Newcastle United

Goals either side of half time from Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister ensured Newcastle United suffered a 2-0 defeat at Liverpool on Wednesday night.

Hungarian midfielder Szoboszlai's neat finish put Arne Slot's title favourites ahead in the rain at Anfield, before Callum Wilson missed an opportunity to draw the visitors level on Merseyside.

But Mac Allister's powerful strike in the second half made sure of the points for the Reds, who opened up a 13-point gap at the top of the Premier League table - with Eddie Howe's United still just three points shy of a top four place.

Having now arguably reached the status of Premier League champions-elect, Liverpool hope to pass another challenging test of their title credentials at home to Newcastle United on Wednesday night, in a precursor to next month's EFL Cup final.NThe Reds' lead at the summit stretched into the double figures when they overcame Manchester City 2-0 on Sunday, a couple of hours after the Magpies' absorbing 4-3 win over Nottingham Forest. As Darwin Nunez flounders at the tip of the Liverpool attack, Alexander Isak flourishes in the Magpies' setup and reached 19 goals for the Premier League season in Sunday's thriller with Forest, where Jacob Murphy and Lewis Miley also contributed to the cause. Set-piece failings in the second half made the contest far nervier than it should have been in the second half, but Eddie Howe's men just about bested their fellow high-flyers to go level on points with Man City, who are only keeping them outside of the top four on goal difference.

Newcastle surviving that late Forest fightback ensured that they would avoid the humiliation of three straight Premier League defeats, but Howe's men have lost their defensive steel again, conceding nine goals across their last three games and failing to keep a clean sheet in five in the top flight alone. Furthermore, the Magpies have now failed to win any of their last 16 Premier League games against Liverpool, whose last home loss in this top-flight fixture came all the way back in 1994, although December's 3-3 stalemate may have felt like a triumph for Newcastle after Fabian Schar's heroic 90th-minute intervention.

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