MO SALAH became the first ever Liverpool player to strike 20 times or more in SEVEN successive seasons.
Yet if he was able to play against teams as bad as Sparta each week, the Egyptian would be finishing every campaign with 80 goals.
Liverpool were rampant but the Czech champions utterly hopeless as Jurgen Klopp’s quadruple-chasers strolled to a ludicrously easy win.
Salah was joined in this latest Reds goalfest by Darwin Nunez, Bobby Clark, Cody Gakpo (two) and Dominik Szoboszlai and had they really wanted to, Liverpool would have reached double figures.
It is difficult to remember a team as poor as Sparta in the knockout stages of any European tournament and Liverpool know that today’s quarter-final draw will produce far tougher opponents.
Klopp, who is now preparing for Manchester United on Sunday in the FA Cup, had the luxury of taking off Nunez, Joe Gomez and Wataru Endo at half-time.
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But the Liverpool manager still ended up getting a yellow card as he complained over sub Jarell Quansah getting a slightly harsh booking.
Incredibly, Liverpool scored three goals in the space of three goals and 12 minutes and were 4-0 up after 14 minutes
Unmarked Nunez stroked Szobozlai’s pass into the corner in the seventh minute for his 17th of the season.
Just 68 seconds later, on his full European debut, Bobby Clark grabbed a second following a suicidal pass across the face of the goal by Sparta skipper Ladislav Krejci.
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Salah took his place in the Liverpool history books with a low shot from inside the area after the bustling Clark nicked the ball off Jaroslav Zeleny.
Gakpo ensured that the front three all got their names on the scoresheet when he made it 4-0 with a first-time finish after being picked out by Salah.
Despite their team playing abysmally, the Czech fans made plenty of noise and at least they had something to shout about when Serb forward Veljko Birmancevic squeezed a shot past Caoimhin Kelleher.
The second half was less than three minutes old when Szoboszlai’s shot, which seemed to be going wide, was deflected into the net by Krejci.
Gakpo delivered a clever flick to divert Harvey Elliott’s shot past beleaguered keeper Peter Vindahkl who will have nightmares over these two games against Liverpool.
Klopp gave a debut to Polish 20-year-old attacking midfielder Mateusz Musialowski and the only surprise was that skipper Virgil van Dijk was risked as a 66th minute sub.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
