86 min Burn is booked for dissent.

84 min: Liverpool substitutions Hugo Ekitike (who is fine but ready for a rest) and Mo Salah are replaced by Federico Chiesa and Curtis Jones. Newcastle bring on Will Osula for Kieran Trippier.

82 min There’s a break in play when Ekitike goes down after a clash of heads in the Liverpool area.

In fact he was caught by the elbow of either Van Dijk or Szoboszlai as they jumped to clear a cross.

80 min Newcastle are slowly stirring and win a corner on the left. Trippier takes, Alisson catches it under the bar. Trippier may have been trying to score there.

76 min Liverpool have the game under control at the moment. Newcatle need something to change the momentum.

73 min: Triple substitution for Newcastle Jacob Murphy, Yoane Wissa and Nick Woltemade replace Anthony Elanga, Joe Willock and Harvey Barnes.

69 min: Chance for Salah! The scoreline feels harsh on Newcastle. It almost gets worse when Wirtz, on the break, puts Salah through on goal with a lovely pass. This time Salah gets away from Hall but then pokes wide of the near post with his left foot.

Ekitike and Gakpo combined to find Wirtz, who gave the ball to Salah on the right side of the area. He returned it to Wirtz, 16 yards out, and he screwed an immaculate low shot across goal. It brushed the far post and rolled into the net; that was the finish of a class footballer.

66 min If it stays like this Liverpool will go fifth, at least until Manchester United play Fulham tomorrow. It’s very tight: just seven points between Chelsea in fourth and Bournemouth in 12th.

65 min Gravenberch whacks a shot over from distance.

62 min Salah loses the ball to Hall, not for the first time tonight. If the World Cup was starting tomorrow, I’d make Hall England’s left-back.

61 min This is still anyone’s game – Newcastle are a threat, as they were in the first half, and Liverpool are rarely not a goal threat at Anfield.

59 min: Fine save by Alisson! A Newcastle free-kick is half cleared to the edge of the area. Barnes whacks a left foot shot on the bounce that comes through a crowd and is saved brilliantly to his left by the diving Alisson. He must have seen that late.

59 min Mac Allister is booked for a trip on Ramsey.

58 min Free-kick to Liverpool 30 yards from goal. Szoboszlai teases everyone into thinking he’ll shoot, then chips a cross towards Van Dijk at the far post. His header across goal is claimed by the diving Pope.

56 min Elanga’s low shot is saved by Alisson, though the flag went up as soon as the ball ran loose.

54 min “Hi Rob,” says Peadar de Burca. “It’s minus 8 here in south-west Poland but that didn’t stop me heading off to see Gornik Zabrze beat Piast Gliwice 2-1 to go top of the Ekstraklasa table. It’s a tough call who to shout for as both grounds are a ten-minute drive apart with my house in the middle.

“Gornik went a goal down but their bare-chested Ultras basically willed their team to find two goals either side of half time. Lukas Podolski was on the Zabrze bench (he’s 40) and you get the feeling he’s happy to be part of the Gornik revival. Half-time music at the Ernst Pohl Stadium? Def Leppard! Let’s Get Rocked!”

53 min When a Newcastle corner isn’t properly cleared, Alisson has to dive in front of Thiaw to punch Elanga’s cross away. Brave goalkeeping.

49 min After a smart Liverpool break, a mistimed low shot from Szoboszlai is comfortably saved by Pope.

47 min “Thanks for the link to the 1995 Newcastle v Liverpool match,” says Tim Woods. “Although it does raise an important question: how do you remember the details of so many games over the past 30+ years? Is it some kind of Holmesian mind palace you’ve dedicated to remembering Premier League fullbacks rather than solving crimes? PS blond highlights were quite the thing in the 90s, weren’t they?”

Which bugger showed you my university photogr- oh, you mean footballers with blond highlights? Yeah, it was a moment in the Premier League in the winter of 1995. I think Steve Stone joined in.

As for my weird memory, I make most of it up but pop in an occasional YouTube clip, correctly recalled, to throw people off the scent.

46 min Peep peep! The second half is under way.

Romance, R. I. P.

“Rob,” says Chris Paraskevas, “my ‘Ideal Sunday’ list for Hinge could really go either way at this point... current draft:

1. Cigarettes

2. Coffee

3. Cough out phlegm

4. C̶e̶l̶e̶b̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶ Forget defeat with breakfast at cafe (or re-heat available pizza)

5. Review Guardian MBM/match report

6. PES6 Co-Op Tournament on PS2

7. Order more pizza

8. R̶o̶m̶a̶n̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶d̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶ ‘Alone time’ to process Eddie Howe’s tactical errors

9. Delete Hinge

More half-time emails

Drew Ellis “The double signing of Ekitike & Isak reminds me of when LFC brought in the Andy Carroll and Suarez at the same time. Everyone was excited about the more expensive Newcastle striker and nobody had heard of the other guy. Could see this working out similarly.”

Alun Pugh “The James Joyce (tried there) is not showing the match. But the Dublin pub had it on one of their screens. The sound is off but there is a truly awful local band who can’t make up their minds if they are punks or heavy metal turning it up to eleven.”

Gary Byrne “Ekitike is the surely the second coming of Torres, and not just because of the blond locks.”
(Steven Gerrard just made a similar point on TV, and now you mention it that second goal was pure Torres.)

Andy Flintoff “Watching that second Ekitike goal - the space for him to run into was created by Wirtz coming short and drawing the fullback out. Without that, the pass is not on.”

Stephen Bradfield “The way things are going, the Isak move to Liverpool is going to look like one of the dumbest ever for player and clubs. What were they thinking? Move in haste repent at leisure.”

“We all know that often players take time to adjust to the Premier League,” says Matt Dony. “Even so, it’s almost impossible to fully switch off from the general air of impatience that surrounds football these days. Results immediately, or get the hell outta here. But, it turns out that Wirtz is a brilliant footballer. It’s almost as if the people involved in buying him knew what they were doing. Who’d have thought, eh?”

Are you trying to trigger me? I was pleading for sanity all autumn!

Half-time reading

Ask a Crystal Palace fan what price they would have paid at this time last year to win the FA Cup. Would they have taken a run of 11 games without a win, Eberechi Eze and Marc Guéhi sold, Oliver Glasner disillusioned and on his way out of the club, and a probable relegation battle ahead? Almost certainly, yes.

But equally that Palace fan would be within their rights to ask why there should be a pay-off at all. This isn’t like Portsmouth winning the FA Cup in 2008 while living beyond their means under Alexandre Gaydamak, going into administration in 2009-10. It’s not like Wigan winning the FA Cup as they were relegated in 2013 having been sustained in the Premier League by Dave Whelan.

The race for the golden boot

Hugo’s on the charge…

45+4 min A seductive inswinging free-kick from Szoboszlai is headed on and over by Mac Allister. Not a bad effort; there’s always an element of luck with those headers that you help on.

45+4 min “Would Liverpool be this far off the top if they hadn’t been dead set on getting Isak and had gone with Ekitike?” wonders Kári Tulinius. “The protracted transfer saga and attempts to integrate the Swede unsettled the whole team in the autumn. If they’d simply let the Frenchman lead the line, the side would’ve cohered much sooner.”

45+3 min Ramsey is booked for wiping out Kerkez.

45+2 min Salah’s corner is headed well wide by the leaping Ekitike near the penalty spot. It was just too high for him.

45 min Five minutes of added time, and Liverpool are rampant.

“Eddie Howe must be fuming,” says Joshua Keeling. “Newcastle have been brilliant, but that second goal was a shambolic from them.”

They were asleep defensively, weren’t they? Even so, it was a brilliant finish – a Romario goal, and there ain’t no higher praise in my one-bedroom flat.

How good is Hugo Ekitike? That Newcastle corner lead to a free-kick that was taken quickly by Alisson to Kerkez. He swept a penetrative long pass forward to Ekitike, running into space in the inside-left channel. Ekitike moved into the area, shifted the ball away from Thiaw and toepoked an early shot across Pope.

That is such a good finish, the kind we associate with Brazilian geniuses like Ronaldo and Romario, because the angle was really tight. Everything suggested a left-foot shot; Ekitike toebunged it with his right.

42 min Willock rumbles past Szoboszlai on the edge of the area and is about to shoot when a Liverpool defender (Van Dijk? Konate? Piechnik?) touches it behind for a corner. From which…

Two of Liverpool’s big signings combine for a terrific goal. Florian Wirtz received the ball from Gravenberch just inside a crowded area, to the left of centre; in the blink of an eye he danced past two players and then – and in many ways this was the best bit – showed superb awareness to screw the ball back towards Ekitike. He poked it past Pope from six yards.

40 min Salah has a shot pushed round the near post by Pope. The flag went up for offside after that but I think Salah was on.

39 min Gordon surges into the area, once agia in the inside-right channel, and drives a shot across goal from an even tighter angle. It’s on target and Alisson has to get down smartly to make a pretty good save.

Edit: on reflection I think it would have gone wide of the far post, though Alisson couldn’t take any chances.

38 min The goal came at a time when Liverpool were looking more dangerous. They’ve picked up where they left off and Ekitike goes down in the area after a forceful but fair (I think) challenge from Trippier.

37 min Anthony Gordon – a former Everton player, one of Anfield’s favourite villains – celebrated the goal with a nonchalant, ‘how ya like me now?' pose while looking into the massed crowd.

After another Newcastle break, led by Willock, Mac Allister challenged Barnes on the edge of the area. The ball ran across to Gordon in the inside-right channel, 15 yards from goal. He shifted the ball to the right before driving it through the legs of Kerkez and back across goal. Alisson couldn’t get there and the ball rolled into the far corner.

35 min Liverpool are having their best spell of the half. Salah plays a one-two with Wirtz and finds Gravenberch, who tries to make room for a shot on the edge of the area. Thiaw reads his intention and makes a good tackle.

33 min: Chance for Liverpool Gravenberch stabs a neat pass into the area for Ekitike, who times his run perfectly and finds himself one-on-one in the inside-right channel. He tries to flip the ball across goal but Pope stays on his feet and pushes the ball away. Good save, and a reminder to Newcastle of Liverpool’s threat.

30 min Tonali shoots high and wide from distance. It’s all Newcastle right now, which may well mean a Mo Salah goal is imminent.

28 min A Newcatle corner – their seventh of the game – is headed down by Thiaw and booted clear by Gravenberch in the six-yard box. Moments later a lovely cross from the left by Hall just evades Willock, Thiaw and Burn in the six-yard box.

25 min Gordon drops short and sprays a pass out to Barnes on the left. He cuts infield with intent and is tripped by Gravenberch on the edge of the area. This is a chance for Newcastle, with Trippier the man most likely…

24 min The home crowd are frustrated when Kerkez is penalised for pulling back Elanga. It looked like a foul, and the frustration is probably more with how the game is going. Newcatle are the more confident team.

20 min Gordon crosses from the left towards the unmarked Barnes, forcing Van Dijk to stretch and volley behind for a corner. Important defending.

19 min Salah runs through on goal from inside his own half, which means he’s onside, but he doesn’t quite have the pace of old to get away from Trippier. Eventually Trippier knocks the ball behind for … a goalkick. It looked like Trippier got the last touch, though the main point is that the Salah of old wouldn’t have given Trippier a sniff.

17 min Ramsey stands on the ball in his own third, eventually leading to a crisp daisycutter from Ekitike, 20 yards out. Pope falls to his right to make a comfortable save.

15 min Gakpo beats three players in his own half with a thrilling, twisting run. Eventually Willocks gets back to knock him off the ball, but Gakpo’s skill has awoken the crowd.

14 min Newcastle have had two thirds of the possession, which is six tenths of the law.

12 min Gordon is booked for a late tackle on Alisson, who unwittingly invited the challenge with a slightly heavy touch. Gordon needs to be really careful or he could do a Vidic and receive two red cards against Liverpool in one season.

10 min No punishment for Gordon. It was off the ball so I guess the referee didn’t see it, and there wasn’t enough for VAR to intervene. They can’t recommend a yellow card yet.

9 min The Liverpool bench are annoyed when Gordon shoves Mac Allister over. He caught him just below the neck, I think, but Mac Allister is holding his throat and looks in a fair bit of distress. He doesn’t look like he’s faking it.

8 min Here’s our match report on Chelsea’s wild comeback at Stamford Bridge.

7 min Hall’s inswinging corner almost sneaks in at the far post, though Alisson had been fouled by Burn so any goal wouldn’t have counted.

7 min Two more corners in quick succession for Newcastle, who have started strongly.

5 min Gordon makes another good run in behind, this time in a central position, but Elanga overhits an admittedly difficult through ball. He looks sharp and is doubtless keen to make amends after being sent off in the return fixture in August.

4 min “I’m starting to think that film is the thing holding me back on Hinge,” writes Chris Paraskevas. “Women see ‘filmmaker’ and it must be a financial/emotional red flag...”

You keep telling yourself that, son.

3 min Gordon, playing as the No9, makes a perfectly timed run in behind and slides a deflected low cross that is walloped behind by Kerkez. The corner is headed away by Van Dijk.

2 min “I lived in Istanbul for many years and the James Joyce pub (there’s one in every city) up the hill from the Ritz is a wonderful spot to watch the Premier League,” writes Drew Gough. “One good turn etc etc. Backup: the Greatness Pub, though it’s a bit farther. God speed to Alun!”

Thanks for all your suggestions, which I’ll forward on to Alun (just the details of the pub, not your name/email address/bank details).

1 min Peep peep! Newcastle kick off from left to right as we watch.

The race for the golden boot

It feels very strange to scan this page and not see the letters S-A-L-A-H. For a variety of reasons he’s scored only four league goals in 2025-26; his lowest total at in a full season at Liverpool is 18.

Anyone in Istanbul? Your Guardian readership needs you!

“Evening Rob,” writes Alun Pugh. “It was lashing down in Istanbul ahead of tonight’s Beşiktaş v Konyaspor game. (2-1 btw). So we repaired to the nearest place to the stadium likely to be serving alcohol to dry out, the famously inexpensive Ritz Carlton hotel.

“It’s showing the Liverpool-Newcastle game but as a round there costs more than our black-and-white-striped knockoff replica Beşiktaş shirts, we are looking for alternative venues to watch the Toon. Can readers suggest a suitable venue?”

Our Australian Geordie Chris Paraskevas is first in my inbox

With the 7am kick-off for this game, it’s a nice change of pace for both myself and the neighbours: ordinarily this is the time I’m crawling into bed on a Sunday, only to be awoken in a cold sweat an hour later by parrot/puppy/whippersnapper... which never ends well for any of us.

I’m hoping our encouraging display in Paris is a springboard into more consistent domestic form: the likes of Ramsey and Elanga have struggled since joining but were much improved during the week, though Woltemade has gone off the boil recently and Wissa clearly isn’t fit.

But let’s please not talk about any other (former) strikers. We don’t need to go there. Eddie Howe is wrong. No one has moved on. I’m trying to maintain good vibes on a Sunday for a change. I want to be productive today and add some accomplishments (e.g. went for walk, had a coffee, went to art gallery) to my Hinge profile so women know I mean business.

We can do this, come on Eddie!

Eddie Howe is helping you with your Hinge profile? Also, you could mention one reasonable accomplishment – you did an actual film.

It’s just over 30 years since Newcastle last won at Anfield, when Steve Watson scored the only goal of a heavyweight League Cup tie. It was his second winner against Liverpool that month, following a late sting in a brilliant league game at St James’ Park that included one of the all-time-great forgotten saves from Shaka Hislop.

One of the reasons it’s forgotten is because Liverpool v Newcastle in the 1995-96 season means only thing.

Full time: Chelsea 3-2 West Ham

West Ham defender Jean-Clair Todibo was sent off for trying to throttle Joao Pedro during that late contremtemps. Chelsea are now celebrating in front of a delighted crowd after coming from 2-0 down at half-time to win – and move up to fourth in the table.

Chelsea have scored a late winner at Stamford Bridge, where things have just kicked off spectacularly.

It’s all change at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea have made it 2-2 with 20 minutes to play. You can follow what is likely to be an eventful climax with Billy Munday.

Liverpool and Newcastle could be given a boost before kick-off. In the early evening game, fifth-placed Chelsea are 2-0 down at home to West Ham. Billy Munday has the latest.