BURNLEY, England -- It's often true that the scruffy, forgettable wins make all the difference in a title race, those days when the big stars don't claim the headlines and the crucial contributions are left to the players who often miss out on the plaudits. If Liverpool are somehow able to overtake Manchester City and win the 2021-22 Premier League, this 1-0 victory at Burnley will tick all over those boxes.
English football has always taken pride in its boast that the Premier League title race is a marathon rather than a sprint, and is a test of quality and endurance that demands teams perform in all conditions from August through to May. To that point, a trip to Burnley in February, when the rain is almost horizontal and the flag on the roof of the Main Stand is pulled in all directions by a howling wind, is as much a test of character as facing Sean Dyche's battling but relegation-threatened side.
Fortunately for Liverpool, who moved to within nine points of City having played one game fewer than Pep Guardiola's champions, when everything was stripped back at Turf Moor, the powerhouse midfield axis of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson drove them on to the victory when their usual match-winners where nowhere to be seen.
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Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino were as good as anonymous up front, with the only significant contribution from the three forwards being Mane's header from Trent Alexander-Arnold's 40th minute corner that fell into the path of Fabinho, who scored his fifth goal in seven games from close range. At the back, Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip were uncharacteristically shaky having been repeatedly knocked off their stride by the pace and movement of Jay Rodriguez, and the physical awkwardness of 6-foot-6 centre-forward Wout Weghorst.
But as the conditions turned the game into an attritional battle of wills, despite Burnley's woeful run of one win in 23 league games prior to kick-off, Liverpool's midfield held firm and delivered.
"It is always hard to play here, Burnley is a tough place to come," Fabinho said. "Sometimes we forget to play football a little bit because we want to fight for the second balls, but when we had the ball on the ground we created chances.
"We didn't score the second goal but defensively the team was very good today. A nice three points."
The three points were the only "nice" element to the game for Liverpool, with Jurgen Klopp's team having to rely on goalkeeper Alisson at times in the first half as Burnley caused problems through Rodriguez and Weghorst. But for all of Burnley's endeavour, they desperately lack quality and have now won just one league game at home since Jan. 2021. Once Fabinho scored five minutes before half-time, the game looked beyond Dyche's team and so it proved.
Much of that was down to Fabinho's control of the central third of the pitch and Henderson's leadership. The Liverpool captain was stretched at times, particularly when he was booked for a late first-half challenge on Erik Pieters which led to the knock that forced his second-half substitution, but Henderson's character was key to the performance as quality took second place to commitment.
"We have to work incredibly hard and that is what the boys did," Klopp said. "We made our shirts dirty. I am really happy because I know how difficult it is to come here. Everything today was set up to be a banana skin for us. The balls in the air were so tricky to defend because the wind came from all directions. We played the circumstances rather than suffered from them."
If Liverpool are to claw City back, they will have to win with more quality and control than they managed at Turf Moor. But if they can win their game in hand and beat City at the Etihad in April, the deficit could be reduced to three points, which would ensure a tense run-in to the end of the season.
Liverpool cannot afford to drop any points, however, between now and their trip to the Etihad, which means the value of Sunday's win is more than simply three points. It emphasised Liverpool's ability to dig out a crucial win when the usual routes to victory were not working. Salah and Mane, in particular, were some way below their usual standards, but it will be viewed as another positive that a win was secured without their decisive qualities.
Keeping pace with City is the issue now, and Liverpool did what they had to do.
"It [the gap to City] is nine points and then it is 12 points because most of the time they play before us," Klopp said. "Next game is Leeds at home and a fight for survival as well. These are really difficult, and that is why we don't think about it."