{"id":3164,"date":"2014-03-02T06:17:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T06:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=3164"},"modified":"2014-03-02T06:17:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T06:17:00","slug":"liverpool-second-after-win-at-southampton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=3164","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool second after win at Southampton"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Steven<\/a>
Steven Gerrard has scored eight goals in 25 Premier League games this season<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Liverpool strengthened their title challenge as a clinical victory over Southampton lifted them into second in the Premier League table.<\/p>\n

Striker Luis Suarez scored his first goal for six games with a low finish from just inside the penalty area.<\/p>\n

Southampton’s Adam Lallana was denied an equaliser by a post before Reds substitute Raheem Sterling made it 2-0.<\/p>\n

The teenager netted with his first touch after Suarez’s cross, and Steven Gerrard added the third with a penalty.<\/p>\n

The spot-kick was awarded after the tireless Suarez, making his 100th Premier League appearance, was hauled down by Jose Fonte deep in stoppage time.<\/p>\n

With Arsenal losing earlier at Stoke<\/a> and Manchester City not playing, Liverpool are now table-topping Chelsea’s closest rivals.<\/p>\n

The Reds head into a two-week break four points behind Jose Mourinho’s leaders with 10 games remaining.<\/p>\n

But they leapfrog Arsenal because of a superior goal difference and, just as importantly, are nine points clear of fifth-placed Tottenham in the race for Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n

Manager Brendan Rodgers will be just as pleased with a clean sheet after his side conceded five goals in their previous two games.<\/p>\n

Liverpool remain unbeaten in the top flight in 2014, with seven wins in nine games.<\/p>\n

They arrived at St Mary’s Stadium having scored in their previous 17 league games, and required just 16 minutes to extend that run to 18.<\/p>\n

The goal came after a powerful run by Daniel Sturridge following a Liverpool throw-in, with Fonte diverting the ball into the path of Suarez, who finished clinically.<\/p>\n

In a game that featured nine players called up for England duty against Denmark, Southampton spent the remainder of the first half testing the visitors’ defence.<\/p>\n

Lallana was denied by a post after the Reds had failed to deal with Jay Rodriguez’s looping cross, while French midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin fired narrowly over with a shot on the turn.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez was then left frustrated by Simon Mignolet’s diving save before Sterling put the game beyond the hosts 80 seconds after replacing Philippe Coutinho.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liverpool strengthened their title challenge as a clinical victory over Southampton lifted them into second in the Premier League table. Striker Luis Suarez scored his first goal for six games with a low finish from just inside the penalty area. Southampton’s Adam Lallana was denied an equaliser by a post before Reds substitute Raheem Sterling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":3166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-3164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}