A first outing of the season for sunshine and bright blue skies made this Anfield afternoon feel rather like spring 2025 – but the weather was not the only reason.
For the first time since the famous day of April last when Liverpool won the Premier League title by thrashing Tottenham, the Reds scored three in a first half and put a game to bed.
The weather makes everything feel better and, like the lyrics to Here Comes The Sun by local band the Beatles, it has been a long, cold, lonely winter for Liverpool.
But the green shoots of spring are now showing after a taxing mid-season slump-cum-crisis for the champions, who have now won four games in a row.
Hugo Ekitike, Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister were the first-half goal-scorers as the Reds broke with tradition to put their chances away, unlike far too often this season where poor finishing has bugged Arne Slot.
It highlighted the importance of starting games strongly as it gave Liverpool the safety cushion of a rather sloppy second half where West Ham came out fighting and pulled one back through Tomas Soucek just after the break.
Liverpool beat West Ham 5-2 to boost their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League
Liverpool burst out of the traps and were 3-0 up by half-time. Hugo Ekitike (right) and Virgil van Dijk (left) were among the scorers
First halves have been a major problem for Slot this year. His team had scored just 13 goals in opening periods this season, compared to 29 after the interval.
Too often they have left themselves with mountains to climb, too often they have allowed opposition teams to grow in confidence against them.
Despite the fast start, the overall performance still left a bit to be desired. In terms of expected goals (xG), West Ham created more and maybe classed themselves as still in the contest until Cody Gakpo put it out of reach on 71 minutes with a much-needed goal.
That xG statistic counts for nothing, though, in either the relegation battle or the scrap for Champions League places. All history will remember is Liverpool giving the Hammers a shellacking and putting a huge dent in their hopes of safety.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s charges came here on a run of just one defeat in their last eight – a loss to Chelsea in a game they led 2-0 – but he would have travelled back to London knowing the Hammers’ top-flight future is dangling by a thread.
Slot, meanwhile, will know this was another crucial victory on the way to achieving Champions League qualification again for next season, after last week’s last-second winner at Nottingham Forest.
The importance of staying in Europe’s premier competition was highlighted in financial accounts published this week: they made a profit and posted record revenues last year, compared to a significant loss the year before when they were only in the Europa League.
With Aston Villa losing to Wolves on Friday night, Unai Emery’s men have been reeled from a title race to a battle for the top five – so this was points gained on them for Liverpool, with tricky games for Chelsea and Manchester United on Sunday.
Given a tricky run-in for the Reds that sees them play all three of those teams in their last four games, two away from home, getting points on the board now might be of the utmost importance come squeaky bum time in May.
Van Dijk’s header from a corner highlighted Liverpool’s improved strength at set-pieces
Alexis Mac Allister scored for the second successive week to double his tally for the season
Tomas Soucek pulled one back at the start of the second half, but Liverpool held their nerve
Another problem area in Liverpool’s tricky season has been set-pieces but this game was another step in the right direction in that regard.
The ‘set-piece table’ is rather pretentious but it is worth referring to with this team. At the turn of the year, no team had scored fewer set-piece goals than Liverpool. In a mini-league since the start of 2026, no one has more than the Reds.
It is a remarkable turnaround for a team who looked so weak at the so-called small margin of the game that actually is having a rather decisive influence on this season, something that Slot – and other managers – discuss every day.
The first goal technically came from a set-piece as West Ham twice failed to defend a corner and Ekitike, on the half-volley, powered his 16th goal of the season past Hermansen, who was not helped by a minor deflection.
It was soon two thanks to the captain, Van Dijk, who headed home a Dominik Szoboszlai corner which took the Hungarian to eight goal involvements for the calendar year. Unlike Liverpool’s up and down form, Szoboszlai’s supremacy has been unwavering in a stellar campaign.
Mac Allister, who pulled off a great robbery in Robin Hood country last weekend with a last-gasp winner in Nottingham, doubled his league tally for the season with a nice volley which, again, came from a corner.
Clearly, this was a day to right the wrongs of this season. From set-piece vulnerability to putting Mikel Arteta’s dead-ball kings to shame, from slow starts being an unwanted theme to flying out of the blocks and having the game won by half-time.
Soucek pulled a goal back on 49 minutes to add a few nerves to Anfield, which were only furthered when Gakpo shanked one wide at point-blank range minutes later. The Dutchman soon atoned by cutting in to score his first goal in eight games.
West Ham’s January signing Taty Castellanos scored his third goal for the club on 75 minutes to prove Liverpool’s set-piece problems may still exist in a defensive sense, but substitute Jeremie Frimpong soon forced a Reds fifth, via a deflection off Axel Disasi, to put the gloss on the win.
It was the first time Slot’s men have scored five in the league since they confirmed their status as champions last April. We know they won’t be doing the same again this year but this was a significant victory on the way to achieving their new goal of Champions League qualification.