Leicester City’s Belgian defender Wout Faes inadvertently boosted Liverpool’s hopes of making the Champions League by scoring two own-goals in his team’s 2-1 loss at Anfield on Friday.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall had given Leicester a fourth-minute lead when he strolled through the middle of the Liverpool defence.
However, that was the cue for Faes’s double dose of embarrassment.
In the 38th minute, Faes, in his first season at the club after a £15million move from Reims, sliced an attempted clearance from a Trent Alexander-Arnold cross over the head of his goalkeeper Danny Ward.
Seven minutes later, his evening got worse.
Darwin Nunez was sent through by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and his lob over Ward came off the post.
However, as the ball came back, Faes somehow managed to hammer the ball into his own net.
The result left Liverpool in sixth place, two points off the top four while Leicester are down in 13th.
“At times, I thought we were poor today (Friday). It’s a cliche but it’s important to get the three points and win,” Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk told Sky Sports.
“We tried to get in the game but we weren’t good enough and we know that. We won, which is positive, but there are plenty of things we have to improve on.”
Meanwhile, West Ham’s year ended by being booed off the pitch following a 2-0 defeat to London rivals Brentford.
First-half goals from Ivan Toney and Josh Dasilva piled the pressure on West Ham boss David Moyes after a fifth consecutive Premier League defeat.
West Ham are just one spot above the relegation zone while Brentford climbed to ninth.
“I thought we played well today (Friday). The goals were completely against the run of play, we’ve lost two goals to throw ins. We made a lot of opportunities, we just couldn’t take them,” Moyes said.
“It’s small margins, I thought the players did a great job, kept going. We just didn’t have the final bit of the jigsaw.”
The defeat means Moyes has now lost five successive games for the first time since 2005 when he was in charge of Everton.
“It’s a big result, to come here and win 2-0 is impressive,” said Brentford manager Thomas Frank.
“West Ham were better than us in the first half but we took our two moments and the second half was spotless in defence. We had chances to kill the game at 3-0, but still, good points.”