Liverpool made Premier League history after last-gasp Mo Salah penalty at Turf Moor | OneFootball

In scoring the 95th-minute penalty which gave Liverpool a 1-0 win at Burnley on Sunday, Mo Salah ticked off quite a few statistical footnotes.

The goal was his 188th in the Premier League, moving him into outright fourth place in the division’s all-time scoring charts above Andy Cole, while it also ensured that the Reds’ sequence of scoring in competitive top-flight games has now lasted more than a year.

In addition, it helped Arne Slot’s side to complete a feat that no other team has managed in the 33-and-a-bit years since the rebranding of England’s top tier in 1992.

Liverpool made Premier League history at Turf Moor

As noted by BBC Sport, Liverpool have become the first side in Premier League history to win four consecutive games thanks to decisive goals scored in the final 10 minutes or later.

Federico Chiesa came off the bench to restore the Reds’ lead against Bournemouth in the 88th minute on the opening night of the season, with Rio Ngumoha then netting a 100th-minute winner in a pulsating contest away to Newcastle 10 days later.

Dominik Szoboszlai’s match-winning free kick against Arsenal clocked in at a comparatively early 83 minutes, and the extraordinary sequence was continued with Salah’s penalty five minutes into stoppage time at Turf Moor yesterday.

(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Liverpool can’t keep it up much longer, surely!

Liverpool scoring last-gasp winners in Premier League games certainly isn’t a new phenomenon – think back to Stan Collymore and Robbie Fowler against Newcastle in the 1990s; Gary McAllister, Dirk Kuyt, Sadio Mane and Divock Origi in Merseyside derbies; Neil Mellor against Arsenal in 2004; Alisson Becker in euphoric circumstances at West Brom.

As Ian Doyle noted in the Liverpool Echo, Salah extended the Reds’ record of scoring more winning goals in the 90th minute or later than any other club in the division’s history, with yesterday being the 47th such occurrence.

The remarkable habit of late winners is being viewed through two contrasting prisms. While optimists proclaim that the champions are already finding ways to win without getting anywhere near the best, detractors or more pessimistic fans may feel that the sequence of deadline-busting decisive goals is unsustainable and our luck will soon run out.

It certainly isn’t in Slot’s tactical blueprint to keep winning games at the death, and LFC could do with getting the job done in more routine fashion as the season progresses, rather than always having to rely on a last-gasp moment of magic (or an unexpected break such as Hannibal Mejbri’s handball).

When the dust settles at the end of May, though, all that counts is the number of points on the board, rather than how they were achieved. If Liverpool are to retain the Premier League title by a tight margin, they may well look back at the opening quartet of games as the difference between first and second.