Mohamed Salah has a massive desire for scoring goals – Reds boss Jurgen Klopp

Reports of Liverpool’s demise appear to be exaggerated after back-to-back wins at Tottenham and the Hammers lifted them to third.

Salah’s exquisite second-half goals – a curling lob over Lukasz Fabianski and a stunning finish to a lightning counter-attack – were his first in seven matches and made him the first player since Ian Rush to score 20 or more in four consecutive seasons for the Reds.

Anfield boss Klopp said: “I’m not surprised. I work on a daily basis together with him and he will never stop having a massive desire for scoring goals. For sure not.

“He is a world-class player, there is no doubt about that. I said in the last few weeks when we didn’t score that many, the only thing you can do is try and try and try again. You have to make good decisions, or better decisions.

“The first goal was a proper smart goal and in the last few weeks he probably would have tried to shoot through the legs or whatever, but that was really keeping the overview and chipping the ball into the far corner. A top-class goal.”

Georginio Wijnaldum added a third for the champions before Craig Dawson’s late consolation. A 3-1 defeat brought West Ham’s six-match winning run to a halt.

They remain fifth, but manager David Moyes said: “I think there are three or four teams who are better than all the rest, I think that is quite an obvious thing to say, and Liverpool are in that category.

“We are not putting ourselves in that category. I have been in the job a year now and we have been trying to make progress and steady strides, I don’t think we were ever really competing against Liverpool.

“We have got ourselves in a really strong position but we have a long way to go. But it is time as well that you need.

“You can’t make these things happen and compete against the best teams in the league immediately, it needs a build and stability and an idea of where we are going to go in the future.”