Salah keeps cool from the spot to crown Alisson's happy return

Liverpool's perfect Champions League continued and a new record was completed with a sixth win and a fifth clean sheet.

- Sid Lowe

Arne Slot's side have now not conceded since the third minute of the opening night at San Siro, their best ever run in Europe. They also have their goalkeeper back, and on a cold night at Montilivi those things were related. Mohamed Salah's penalty secured a victory against Girona, but this was also about Alisson who made five saves on his return to help virtually secure a place in the last 16 with two matches to spare.

If the record is perfect, the performance was not, Slot saying he was "far from pleased" with how Liverpool had played. In the end, though, it was enough: routine and maybe a bit bureaucratic, the coach complaining at a lack of intensity.

The penalty that won it certainly was, decreed by the video assistant referee, a magnifying glass held over a minor misdemeanour. Luis Diaz went down under a challenge from Donny van de Beek, his boot lost. "When I saw that, I thought: 'He's going to give it," the Girona coach, Michel Sanchez, admitted. "It's not the kind of penalty I like but it is where we are with VAR."