Liverpool may quietly have got their most potent…

Liverpool may quietly have got their most potent attacking weapons back

It was a snapshot that perhaps best illustrated the enthusiasm shown by Liverpool's full-backs on Monday evening.

And, no, it wasn't the sight of Andy Robertson laughing in the face of Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford to spark an unseemly melee that could yet have disciplinary ramifications for both teams.

Instead, the moment came nine minutes before the interval when Mohamed Salah prodded home Darwin Nunez's cross to cap a lightning counter-attack and give the Reds a lead they never looked like relinquishing.

The first person to celebrate with the delighted Egyptian? Robertson, who along with Cody Gakpo was one of three Liverpool players to have kept pace with the sprinting Nunez and offer themselves for a straightforward finish.

Robertson was one of several Reds who appeared refreshed after the nine-day break following the dreadful 3-0 reverse at relegation-threatened Wolverhampton Wanderers the previous weekend.

And it was his forward thrust out of the left-back position that initiated the move from which Gakpo notched Liverpool's second shortly after half-time. While Trent Alexander-Arnold ultimately had his assist for the goal chalked off after his cross took a flick off Everton defender Vitalii Mykolenko, it was his overlapping run the Blues found impossible to track.

The importance of the full-backs has long been established at Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp, particularly from an attacking sense. Small wonder Robertson has the most assists for a defender in Premier League history, with Alexander-Arnold not far behind in third place.

Last season, Robertson contributed 15 in 47 outings in all competitions, along with three goals. For Alexander-Arnold, it was 19 in the same number of games with two goals.

This term, though, has seen a stark contrast. Alexander-Arnold had to wait until the 3-1 defeat at Brentford on January 2 when his cross, headed in by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, became his first and so far only Premier League assist to date. Another came in the FA Cup against Wolves, but that's it.

Robertson has fared much better, with his total of eight in 26 games leaving him on target for a tally not far short of last campaign. But few would contend the full-backs have been firing anywhere near as much this campaign.

That's what made the performance against Everton so encouraging. Yes, it was a mere first step after such a poor run of form since the turn of the year, highlighted by Liverpool having scored only 14 times in 11 games since the World Cup break.

At least half of those, however, involved a key contribution from full-back, whether a direct pass such as Robertson's assist for Salah at Aston Villa, or the combined efforts that prompted the second on Monday evening.

While the relationship between Alexander-Arnold and Salah down the right is long established, there continues to be genuine signs of an understanding between Robertson and Nunez down the left flank, an alliance that first truly flickered into life during arguably Liverpool's best performance of the season - the 2-1 win at Tottenham Hotspur back in November.

The return to some semblance of form of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson in midfield, along with the enthusiasm and energy of teenager Stefan Bajcetic, also gave both full-backs greater scope to push forward on Monday in the knowledge the gaps they left behind were being covered. That hasn't always been the case this campaign.

"That was us tonight, definitely," said Klopp shortly after the final whistle. "We have to make sure we are us from now on." Key to that, then, will be keeping the full-backs motoring.

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