Match data from WhoScored, except average position from the SofaScore app.
I may have been hasty in dismissing Liverpool's ability to score from crosses after Sunday's match. Maybe Trent Alexander-Arnold crosses aren't the same as James Milner crosses.
So that was something. After successive 0-0 draws, having scored just one in two of the three league games before those 0-0 draws, we get five goals. Five goals, for the second time this season. Five goals, in back-to-back matches against Watford at Anfield.
Last season, it was the Mohamed Salah show, scoring four and notching an assist: two tightrope runs in the box, one back post cross met, and one fortuitous rebound. This time, it was Liverpool's full-backs and crosses and Sadio Mané and Virgil van Dijk. And Liverpool crosses from Liverpool full-backs.
Four of Liverpool's five goals came from crosses: three from Alexander-Arnold and one from Robertson. Two from open play, two from set plays.
The last Liverpool player to tally three assists in a match? Alberto Aquilani, a 4-0 win over Burnley in in April 2010. A few months shy of nine years ago. Which is not who I would have guessed was last. Alexander-Arnold's now the youngest player to play three assists in a Premier League game.
So, Liverpool can actually thrive on crosses, whether from open play or set plays. As long as the crosses are that good, and we get that front three movement – whether it's Salah every which way down the right flank, Mané shifting side to side and dropping deep but also splitting center-backs, or Origi cutting in from the left – and we get that ferocity of finishing.
Easier written than done, I suspect.
We still only got one key pass from a Liverpool midfielder: Milner's short pass for Salah down the sideline midway through the first half, allowing the Egyptian to once again run at Adam Masina before ballooning a shot over from just outside the box. When Liverpool cross that well, when Liverpool attack that well, it's easy to ignore what the midfield creates. It's easy to remember that Liverpool don't always (or even often) need the midfield to create.
When we get that production from fullback and that production from the front three, it's perfectly fine for Milner and Wijnaldum to shuttle and harry, and for Fabinho to destroy. More than fine. As if that's all they do, mind.
That Origi started on the left with Sadio Mané up front initially baffled, but it worked spectacularly.
Kristian Walsh cleverly highlighted Origi's role in both of Mané's goals, an extra target in the box, requiring attention at the back post to help free Mané to receive Alexander-Arnold's wicked crosses. He also did well tracking back when needing, and can carry the ball inside as Mané can when on that flank, evidenced by his goal that finally killed the game.
But Mané was the focus, at least in the first half, and especially after scoring those goals. Those perfectly Sadio Mané goals. The first, a header that any and every striker would be proud of. The second, with a first touch of lead and a second of platinum, Sadio Mané encapsulated to a tee. Errant control than a spectacular, impudent, why would you even try and how did you actually do it back-heel from 12-yards out. Good lord, Sadio.
As per usual, it's more than just the goals.
It seems almost churlish to make the comparison, but look at Mané's passes received in 77 minutes against Watford versus Sturridge's in 59 minutes at Manchester United.
More a spearhead than a central hub, less effective when pressing because who isn't, but just as active and just as everywhere as Roberto Firmino usually is. Which is exactly what Liverpool needed from a central striker in a match like this, when the defense will be too deep to fully exploit Salah in the middle and when the Egyptian's so effective against Masina on the right anyway. Whether the central player looks to run behind the back line, create, or score, they need to be involved. Heavily. Which is something that both Sturridge and Origi have struggled with at times.
Mané's played as a lone striker for both Southampton and Senegal in the past, but this was the first time he's done it for Liverpool. It went alright, I guess.
But there's also Salah, somehow kept off the score sheet for the first time against Watford, but absolutely embarrassing Adam Masina all match long, heavily involved in the buildup for Liverpool's first two goals as well as winning both a foul and a yellow card before Liverpool's fifth. He somehow attempted 18 (!!!) take-ons yesterday, even if only successful with seven.
There's also Fabinho, who led the side in both tackles and interceptions, dominant in defensive midfield. And just look at one of those tackles.
Unsurprisingly, Gerard Deulofeu did nothing, literally nothing, after this. Fabinho both tackled and terrified him out of the match.
There's also Andy Robertson, with two assists to complement Alexander-Arnold's three.
There's also Virgil van Dijk, again a colossus at the back, again a clean sheet, but also adding two late set play goals (thanks for taking off Troy Deeney!) to run up the score even more.
There's also Alisson, with little to do until the 76th minute, then denying what looked a certain Andre Gray goal, if only likely to be a consolation at that point, when wide open ten yards out after a second phase blown offside line. He'd made a couple of decent saves on Janmaat and Gray prior, but that was special. It's difficult to stay in the match when Watford don't even take a shot until the 52nd minute and you're even less needed to pass the ball around the back than usual, but Alisson made it look easy. Again.
That makes four consecutive clean sheets, for first time since the final four games of 2016-17, where Liverpool rode both defense and luck to a Champions League place.
And, while Watford isn't the most difficult of fixtures – see: this score line in this fixture last season – they did score five in their last match, beating Cardiff 5-1 on Saturday. They'd lost just once in 2019, 1-2 at Tottenham when conceding in the 80th and 87th minutes. They are joint-best of the rest, only behind Wolves in seventh on goal difference thanks to this match.
This is what Liverpool needed. As against Bournemouth a couple of weeks ago, it may well just be one match against opposition that Liverpool usually does well against. But it's a lot better than the alternative, which we'd seen against Leicester, West Ham, and United.
Still top of the pile, still only by a point. Ten games left.
It certainly did not help that Firmino went off through injury in the 31st minute, casualties claimed on both sides, but that can't be the sole excuse. This ain't the first time we've complained about attacking fluency this season. 
