Key stats
- Liverpool have scored five goals in a game for the first time since October 12th, 2022 against Rangers (W7-1)
- Virgil van Dijk has scored 30 goals for Liverpool in all competitions - 26 of which have been headed. Since his debut for the club in January 2018, the only player to score more headers for a single Premier League club is Harry Kane for Tottenham Hotspur (34)
- Liverpool have kept just two clean sheets in their last 18 games in all competitions, conceding 28 goals in that time
Highlights
Analysis
Cody Gakpo was among the standout performers for Liverpool against Frankfurt and was given a Flashscore rating of 9.4, narrowly ahead of Man of the Match Dominik Szoboszlai on 9.2.
Match report
Arne Slot’s side were desperate to stop the rot in Germany, but it was Frankfurt who took the lead at the end of a devastating move. Rasmus Kristensen was expertly picked out by Mario Götze, and unleashed a right-footed strike from a tight angle that clipped in off the post.
It was the Dane’s first UCL goal to add more encouragement to an already vociferous home crowd, but they were soon silenced thanks to a former hero of theirs.
Andrew Robertson brilliantly played Hugo Ekitike through on goal with the Frankfurt defence horribly exposed, and the latter unleashed a clinical finish against the club he left for £69million three months ago.
The turnaround was complete when Virgil van Dijk headed home from Cody Gakpo’s corner, before Liverpool added a third via another corner before HT. On this occasion, Dominik Szoboszlai was the provider for Ibrahima Konaté to provide a bullet header of his own and leave Frankfurt shell-shocked.
Isak made way for Federico Chiesa after the break, and the Italian almost made an immediate impact when his acrobatic effort flew wide. Florian Wirtz was next to try his luck in pursuit of his first Liverpool goal, but Michael Zetterer parried his free-kick over the bar.
Frankfurt’s rampant start felt like a long time ago, with Zetterer called into action again to deny Ekitike before parrying Conor Bradley’s stinging effort onto the post.
A fourth goal seemed inevitable and it came courtesy of Gakpo, who had the simplest of tasks to tap the ball home from Wirtz’s cut-back. The floodgates had well and truly opened when Szoboszlai drilled home a fifth, with Wirtz the provider once again to round off a job very well done.
This result was the perfect cure for Liverpool's recent slump that had lingered long enough to be classed as a mini crisis. Slot will hope his side can turn a corner now, as they aim to reignite their challenge for domestic and European glory.
They are now unbeaten in 15 matches against German teams (W12, D3) in a run dating back to a 4-2 UCL quarter-final second-leg defeat to Bayer Leverkusen in April 2002.
Meanwhile, this result means Frankfurt’s first three UCL league phase matches have all ended in 5-1 scorelines, ending up on the losing side in two of them. They are now without a win in five games against Premier League clubs (D2, L3) after a sobering night for Dino Toppmöller’s team.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Dominik Szoboszlai (Liverpool)
Post-match reaction
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk told TNT Sports: "I don't know if it's a statement, but it is a win and something to build on. I've been in the football business for a while, so not relief.
"Obviously we are disappointed with losing games, so it's something we have to deal with, stick together and keep working. Today we won and have to be ready for Brentford on Saturday.
"We don't get dragged into the negative things that are going around. The only way you can play your game is to focus on the task ahead. Keep going, don't get dragged into all that stuff."
Liverpool goalscorer Hugo Ekitike, who joined the club from Frankfurt in the summer, explained his decision not to celebrate scoring.
"I have so much respect for them," he told TNT Sports, "they made the player I am right now, I wouldn't be here if I didn't come to Frankfurt. So I come and be respectful and grateful for what they gave to me. I will keep what I learned here and the value they gave me with me in the future.
"I had to (score today). It was a great feeling and it was something special for me to come back, I would say at home. I know everybody here so it was a special game for me and to win and score my first goal in the Champions League, I'm really happy.
"I was just keeping cool, calm. I was just doing what I can do. I knew the 'keeper would come and open the legs so I tired to put it between the legs and it worked."