In a continuation of what has been an amazing season for Ighalo and newly-promoted Watford, the red-hot striker found the back of the net in the 15th and 85th minutes to help secure all three points. With this victory Watford now move up to seventh in the Premier League table, while Liverpool are ninth.
Coming on the back of goals in successive games against Sunderland, Norwich City and Aston Villa, yesterday's brace takes Ighalo's total strikes for the season to 12. He stands fourth in the Premiership scoring charts and is strong candidate to win the golden boot award for netting the highest number of goals in the season.
Yesterday, Ighalo was on fire against a lacklustre Liverpool that was a shadow of the footballing giant once revered globally. He ran the centrebacks Mamadou Sakho and Martin Skrtel ragged all afternoon, ghosting past them with ease to the delight of the Watford faithful who chanted his name non-stop at Vicarage Road.
Liverpool now remain without a win in December and are five points off the top four, with their goal difference now dropping to minus two. In a pathetic defensive display which made Ighalo's job easier Liverpool's back four were static and appeared lethargic, unable to keep up with his diagonal runs.
With just three minutes on the clock, a swinging corner fell into the hands of Liverpool goalkeeper Adam Bogdan, who was deputising for the injured Simon Mignolet. However, he dropped the ball into the path of Watford fullback Nathan Ake, who is on loan from Chelsea, who proceeded to prod home his first Premier League goal.
However, replays showed that Bogdan may have had both hands on the ball at the time of Ake's strike but the goal was still given. Watford then made it 2-0 when Troy Deeney played an excellent ball through to Ighalo, who muscled off Martin Skrtel and fired the ball into the bottom-right corner of Bogdan's goal.
Liverpool's problems worsened when Skrtel was forced off with an injury, as manager Jurgen Klopp opted to bring on Divock Origi as his replacement in an attack-minded substitution. Liverpool held on to the 0-2 deficit until the end of the first half and came out more enterprising at the restart but it was Watford who created all the real goalscoring chances.
Ighalo continued to terrorise the Anfield giants and midway through the second half, a slip from Sakho gave him a one-on-one with Bogdan but Hungarian goalkeeper did well to tip his close-range shot over the bar. Five minutes to the end, Ighalo got his deserved second goal though when Watford skipper Troy Deeney fed the ball through to substitute Valon Behrami, who composed himself and delivered a super ball onto his head to nod past Bogdan.
This victory represents Watford's first four top-flight wins in a row since April 1987. It is also their first successive home game victory since the start of the season.
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