Liverpool strengthen their title challenge as victory over Southampton lifts them into second in the Premier League !!

For so long accused of wallowing in their glorious past, Liverpool are now looking to a triumphant future that edges ever nearer. Three points from a dicey assignment at Southampton means a first title in 24 years is a fantasy with an increasing chance of becoming reality. Only Chelsea are above Brendan Rodgers' swashbuckling side in the Premier League  table now.

Luis Suarez celebrates after scoring his 24th goal of this eason

In the season straight after the abdication of Sir Alex Ferguson, Liverpool could return to the perch that was once their preserve.

The pressure was on Rodgers' men here. Arsenal's defeat at Stoke and Manchester City's engagement in the Capital One Cup final meant victory would propel them into second place, a challenge to which teams of less mettle would not have risen. Southampton had beaten Liverpool in their two previous meetings and posed them plenty of problems here but the visitors took the best blows that their hosts could throw and struck back with three powerful strikes. Another goal spree plus a rare clean sheet made Rodgers a happy man.

"This was an outstanding and really significant performance," said the Liverpool manager, who tempered talk of the title with the inevitable one-game-at-a-time mantra. His Southampton counterpart, Mauricio Pochettino, was less coy, concluding: "Liverpool are definitely a candidate for the title, they have the right players to mount a serious challenge."

Southampton forced Liverpool to prove their credentials and that made for a gripping game.

From the outset both sides fizzed with endeavour and enterprise. Liverpool, who tweaked their formation to play with a midfield diamond and Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suárez as a front two, came within inches of taking the lead in the sixth minute. Sturridge raced down the right and attempted to lay the ball across to the unmarked Suárez but José Fonte stretched to poke the ball behind just as the Uruguayan prepared to pounce.

Both sides began with four players named in the England squad to face Denmark on Wednesday, including the Southampton left-back Luke Shaw, who turns 19 the day before the World Cup final and played as if intent on showing the watching Roy Hodgson that he deserves to go to Brazil. With England's usual right-back, Glen Johnson, deployed on Liverpool's left, Shaw regularly galloped forward to torment Jon Flanagan, though it was Adam Lallana who went down in the box under a challenge from Flanagan in the 13th minute.

The referee, Lee Probert, rejected the pleas for a penalty.

Two minutes later Liverpool's scoring machine clicked into gear. Suárez had not netted for five matches prior to this but, after initiating an attack, he benefited from ricochets off two Southampton defenders before firing low into the net from 16 yards to plunder his 24th goal of the campaign.

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That was one demonstration that Hodgson might not have appreciated given that he has to figure out a way of stopping the Uruguayan in June.

Southampton pushed Liverpool on to the back foot for most of the remainder of the first half and could have been level by half-time. Just past the half-hour Rickie Lambert knocked down a cross to Lallana, whose scuffed close-range shot rolled past Simon Mignolet but bounced out off the post.

The hosts were foiled superbly by the Belgian goalkeeper just before the break, when, after a cross by Lallana and a dummy by Lambert, Jay Rodriguez let fly from eight yards, only for Mignolet to twist his body and turn the low shot away with one hand.

Southampton's forward momentum continued after the resumption. Steven Gerrard, stationed in his now-familiar berth in front of the Liverpool defence, was struggling to keep track of Lallana, who tested Mignolet again in the 49th minute.

Rodgers introduced Raheem Sterling in place of Philippe Coutinho in the 58th minute in a bid to reassert Liverpool's offensive power but hardly imagined that the youngster would score with his first touch. Yet after nimble interplay on the right, Suárez delivered a low ball into the box and Sterling, who was not even born when Liverpool were last champions of England, sidefooted into the net from 10 yards.

Liverpool ended up with the Classy penalty kick by Gerrard to the top right corner

Liverpool finished in jubilant form. Sturridge and Suárez could have scored again before stoppage time, when Suárez darted into the box and duped Fonte, who brought him down to concede a penalty. Gerrard scored with

style.