Arne Slot's dreamy journey becoming a procession

In the process Alexander-Arnold did at least provide a moment of cartoon drama, performing a slightly embarrassed silencing-the-chatter celebration, one hand raised to his ear. Perhaps this was a reference to stories overnight about a move to Real Madrid, something parts of the Spanish media have suggested is all but formalised.

It was at the very least a note of rare second-half interest on an evening that saw Liverpool stick at 5-0 up, Diogo Jota adding another near the end after West Ham’s entire defence and midfield had watched closely as Mohamed Salah did some dribbling.

The result means Liverpool will now enter 2025 top of the Premier League by at least seven points, and with at least one game in hand on those in their slipstream. Arne Slot’s team were once again coherent, energetic and well balanced, the goals shared between that re-energised front three. The weather can change, teams can stumble, force majeure can intervene. The rest of the league is going to need help from all three to prevent the five months becoming an extended procession.

On the other hand, Liverpool won’t get to play West Ham every week, which is probably best for everyone concerned. It would be wrong to say West Ham collapsed in the first half here. This would imply some kind of initial resistance. Instead Julen Lopetegui’s team walked out prepped and ready to dissolve like an over dunked digestive biscuit.

The London Stadium had been a dank, dark end-of-days kind of place at kick-off, ringed with dying Olympic towers and legacy megaliths, looming up into the east London fog like crashed imperial command cruisers.

There was a fuzzy, hungover start, both teams warily pacing out their patterns. With five minutes gone West Ham had the first sniff of a break. Bad idea. Almost immediately Liverpool woke up and should have scored, Cody Gakpo gliding inside and nudging a lovely diagonal pass to Salah close to goal, only for Areola to make a fine diving block.

Already it all looked alarmingly easy for Liverpool. Curtis Jones had started in his advanced pass-and-press attacking role, with Gakpo on the left and Luis Díaz roving mischievously from the centre. West Ham never got to grips with their movement. This isn’t so much a poor West Ham team right now as a totally disconnected one, a collection of shirts vaguely bunched together, like washing on a line.

Liverpool counter-pressed well in that period, albeit stealing the ball comes easier when your opponent seems horrified to find it at his feet in the first place. Díaz skated inside and drew another fine save, the precarious force field around the West Ham six-yard box continuing to spit and fizzle.

The goal finally arrived with 29 minutes gone. Díaz dropped deep and took a short pass from Alexander-Arnold, then tried to feed a cute little pass in to Jones. At which point West Ham produced their most incisive one-touch combination of the half, Konstantinos Mavropanos blocking the ball against Vladimir Coufal, who deflected it straight back into the path of Díaz, who ran on to finish calmly.

Joe Gomez went off injured, replaced by Jarell Quansah. Almost immediately Quansah was a little slow to close down Mohammed Kudus, who shot low and hard and clipped the outside of the post.

No matter. Within two minutes it was 2-0. This time it came from a Díaz break, a pass inside to Salah, and an improvised turn that saw him heel-clip the ball through the legs of Mavropanos, then skitter past to retrieve it as the defender stumbled like a diplodocus being menaced by a velociraptor. The ball was passed to Gakpo who scored.

Did Salah mean it? Probably not quite like that. But he was definitely smart and balanced and physically creative enough to adapt it into a lovely little bespoke moment of skill. And before half-time it was three. Of course it was. This time Carlos Soler gave the ball away. Jones fed it to Salah and he shot with embarrassing ease into the corner.

This game was basically over at the halfway point, as had seemed inevitable from the first low-throttle exchanges. And so the new age rolls on without, as yet, the slightest friction.

Liverpool Football Club has fallen hard for Slot in the last four months. There has been a dreamy quality to that journey from August sunlight to the chill of December, an unexpected sense of drowning in honey.

It seems only logical that the world will intrude at some point. It will be necessary to look down, to feel a little vertigo. Success always comes with snags and difficult moments. But it feels a distant hope for the rest of the field. This was slick, ruthless champion form, victory with strength in reserve.

Guardian