Alexis Mac Allister hailed the composure of Liverpool in ensuring they moved back to the Premier League summit as he urged his team-mates to keep ignoring Manchester City and Arsenal.

The Reds are two points clear after they came from behind to beat Mac Allister’s former club Brighton 2-1 at home on Sunday shortly before their two title rivals played out a drab goalless draw at the Etihad.

Anfield became somewhat nervy after Danny Welbeck’s second-minute opener for the visitors only for Luis Diaz to equalise before Mohamed Salah’s 22nd goal of the season earned Jurgen Klopp’s side a ninth win in their last 11 top-flight games.

And Mac Allister believes Liverpool cannot be distracted by the noise from elsewhere nor the occasional impatience among the fanbase

“We need to go game by game,” said the Argentina international. “We need to focus on ourselves and not on other teams. The team is there, we want to win trophies this season because we want to make it special as well for Jurgen as well. We are in a good way and we want to keep it like that.

“It was an amazing three points because we know the level of Brighton, they are a very good team. The start of the game wasn’t good for us but we kept in the game, you can see the mentality from the boys. We dealt very well with that.

“In the first 15-20 minutes you could see maybe the fans were in a little bit of a rush, but we kept calm and did the things we had to do, we kept the ball and kept playing. That mentality will help us.

“At the same time, I would rather we didn’t start the game by losing, but that’s part of football.”

Salah had a total of 12 shots on goal – a record for a Liverpool player in a Premier League match since such records began – with his decisive moment being assisted by a fine Mac Allister pass after a flowing move sparked by Dominik Szoboszlai.

“It was great team goal,” said Mac Allister, speaking to LFC TV. “The ball from Dom was very good, a little bit hard but it was a good ball and I took a good touch, and when I saw Mo I just played the ball, and when he’s there, 90% of the chances he scores.

“Mo’s mentality is something different.”