Liverpool made it three wins in a row in all competitions with victory over Ipswich Town on Saturday

Liverpool maintained their six-point lead at the top of the Premier League as they beat relegation-threatened Ipswich Town 4-1 at Anfield on Saturday afternoon. It was a comfortable outing for Arne Slot’s side, who deservedly claimed all three points after dominating the contest.

Dominik Szoboszlai opened the scoring with a fine strike on 11 minutes with Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo finding the net to make it 3-0 by half time. Gakpo added a fourth on 65 minutes as he headed home from Trent Alexander-Arnold’s pinpoint cross. Jacob Greaves scored a diving header from a corner in the 90th minute as he grabbed a consolation goal for Ipswich.

On it being a comfortable afternoon for his side, Slot said: “Yeah, that’s mostly because we scored an early goal. It’s been a few times now that we played a home game that we conceded a goal in the start of the game, but I think today is the way you want to start the game: we were aggressive, dominant. For 85 minutes they have hardly been in our half I think. It is a counter-attack threat with the wingers they have and with [Liam] Delap but we managed to control that so, so, so well because of the amount of work we have put in.

“In the end, we are all a bit disappointed with conceding [from] a corner – the first one this season – but for 85 minutes it was almost a perfect performance, against a team that goes to such a low block. That’s not always easy then, but the way we did it for 85 minutes was really good.”

Gakpo hailed by Van Dijk and Fabrizio Romano

After the game, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano posted on social media that Gakpo was the “definition of underrated” after the Dutchman scored twice for the Reds. The double took Gakpo’s goal tally to 14 for the season. He has made 32 appearances for the Reds in all competitions, providing five assists. Eight of his goals have come in the Premier League, along with three of his assists. Since joining the Reds he has scored 37 goals and provided 14 assists in 111 games.

Gakpo became the 13th player in Liverpool history to score in six-straight Anfield appearances. That feat has only been achieved by four other players since 2000, with Gakpo joining Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Luis Suarez and Salah in doing so.

“He is a very important player, having him and Lucho [Luis Diaz] is very good,” said Reds captain Van Dijk of Gakpo after the victory over Ipswich. “They push each other. Cody is an outstanding professional with exceptional qualities and he is showing it on a consistent basis. That’s the most difficult part of football, doing it every couple of days. Cody is definitely doing that.”

Gakpo reacts to win and goals

Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com Gakpo said after the game: “I think it was a very important game… everybody maybe thinks that we should win at home but every game is difficult, especially in the race we are in. So, we have to keep going and keep winning games.

“I think it was an almost-perfect game. I think we created a lot of chances, obviously they were a tough side to play. They played very deep [so it was] very difficult to create some chances but we did that. So, I think we played a good game, scored four goals, but at the end we conceded, which is not what we wanted because we wanted to keep a clean sheet. But at the end, I think [it was] a good performance and on to the next. [I am] very happy to score here at home, in front of the fans, but the most important thing is that we won today and I am very happy to contribute.”