Liverpool blitz beats Ajax and sends Reds into last 16 Klopp: Big achievement

Mohamed Salah’s clipped finish and quickfire goals at the start of the second half from Darwin Nunez and Harvey Elliott took Liverpool to a 3-0 win at Ajax which sends them into the Champions League last 16.

The visitors should have been a couple of goals behind in Amsterdam by the time Salah (42) latched onto Jordan Henderson’s outside-of-the-boot pass and finished first-time for his sixth strike in five Champions League games this term.

Steven Berghuis had smacked a shot against the post just three minutes in and Dusan Tadic would have expected to score when his effort was blocked by Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Liverpool had struggled to get up the pitch for most of that opening period but finished the half strongly and were kicking themselves for not going in two clear at the break when Nunez somehow hit the back post from Roberto Firmino’s inviting pass.

They were soon out of sight at the start of the second period, though, with Nunez (49) powerfully heading in from a corner to make up for that bad miss and Salah then feeding a pass through for Elliott (52) to smack home at the near post, as a three-minute blitz all-but ended the contest.