GERMANY: Liverpool secured their first win of the new Champions League campaign when they defeated Hoffenheim by 2-1 in an away match. This means they will have a one goal advantage coming into the second leg to be played at Anfield.
In a hard fought contest, Rookie full-back Alexander-Arnold demonstrated a cutting edge lacking in some of his more experienced team-mates with an expertly taken set-piece that found the bottom corner of the home net in the 35th minute to give him his first goal for the club.
James Milner took advantage of acres of space on the left to find the top corner via a significant deflection from the chest of Havard Nordtveit just 10 minutes after coming on as a second-half substitute.
Defensive errors allowed Mark Uth to score from a long ball played on to him where he fired in largely unchallenged, getting what could be a crucial goal for his side in the ending stages of the match.
However, matters could have been much different when In just the 11th minute, Simon Mignolet had prevented European debutants Hoffenheim taking the lead with a neat save to push away Andrej Kramaric’s poor penalty after Dejan Lovren had upended Serge Gnabry in the box.
Having inflicted a first home defeat on Hoffenheim since the final day of the 2015-16 season, Liverpool will look to seal a return to the Champions League group stages for the first time since 2014 at Anfield next Wednesday.
