The roar on 60 minutes as Mohamed Salah came onto the pitch could have been heard along the East Lancs Road. Liverpool are nine points behind Manchester City, with a game in hand, and although catching them remains a distant prospect they are not going to give up the chase. The Premier League title race is still on. Liverpool believe and the reaction to Salah’s return told us that.

In his absence, while he and Sadio Mane have been at the African Cup of Nations, Diogo Jota has continued to step up and his two goals – to inflict another defeat on Leicester – took his season’s tally to an outstanding 17. With Luis Diaz impressing on his Premier League debut then Liverpool at the very least have the fire power to go out all guns blazing.

For Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers this was another damaging defeat. It was not unexpected but with both goals conceded from set-pieces a worrying trend is continuing.

He has delivered an FA Cup, two successive fifth-placed finishes but Leicester have gone backwards this campaign and a reckoning is coming with Rodgers already indicating that he plans an overhaul of the squad. Rodgers has to ensure, though, that he is the manager tasked with doing that.

His successor at Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp, will be delighted with the response from his squad in recent weeks with five wins in a row and eight games unbeaten in all competitions since they lost to Leicester just after Christmas.

And so yet again the Leicester disease struck. They conceded from a set-piece. As admired a coach as Rodgers is, it is simply bizarre how bad his team are in such situations. In fact, it looked so predictable from the way they set up. As a corner came in from the right the defensive organisation was all wrong and Wilfried Ndidi allowed himself to be blocked off with the man he was marking, Virgil Van Dijk, who he was also initially too close to on the edge of the penalty area, was allowed to run free and head goalwards. Kasper Schmeichel parried but Jota snapped up the rebound. It was a 13th goal from a set-piece scored by Liverpool this season and, damningly, a 12th conceded by Leicester.

It undid Leicester’s good work. They had looked solid, compact and dangerous on the counter. But they had gifted their opponents the lead and were suddenly in danger of being overwhelmed with Thiago Alcantara’s acrobatic volley from the area’s edge bouncing narrowly wide. Schmeichel was soon busy and twice he punched the ball out as Liverpool threatened and Leicester defence was breached.

The changes made by Rodgers to the side so pitifully rolled over by Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup at the weekend spoke of where he felt the blame lay for that pitiful performance and there was a response, before Liverpool scored, from one of the players who was not dropped.

James Maddison worked the ball through the Liverpool defence and, suddenly, from Ademola Lookman’s pass, he was afforded a sight of goal. It was tight but his shot was good and fierce and it flicked off Alisson’s shoulder and over the cross-bar for a corner.

It came from a rare breakaway and there was another, and more encouragement for Leicester, with James Justin creating space down the right to pull the ball back across the Liverpool area only for it to run marginally behind Lookman who otherwise would have had a tap-in.

Liverpool pressed from the start. There was wave after wave of attack, with Leicester entrenched, and new signing Luis Diaz quick, direct, energetic and immediately eye-catching although Schmeichel had not been tested until the ball ran to Trent Alexander-Arnold who cut inside onto his left-foot and forced the goalkeeper to punch out his rising shot.

Alexander-Arnold was involved again. He stood up a cross with Andrew Robertson throwing himself to try and head home, just missing the ball but smashing his shoulder into the base of the post. Fortunately he could continue. Instead it was Leicester who were hurt as the teams departed at half-time.

Leicester drew encouragement. They sensed there was something for them although Liverpool should have ended that following a seires of chances. Substitutes Salah and Harvey Elliott combined, with subtle trickery, for Salah to face Schmeichel who managed to bundle away his angled shot. Then Schmeichel did even better to deny Salah soon after when the forward ran clear and he stuck out his left hand to block. Salah spun on the ground demanding a penalty for Amartey’s challenge but the game continued. Salah tried again. This time he beat Schmeichel with a sumptuous curling shot only for it to cannon back off the bar with the goalkeeper recovering to turn away Diaz’s drive who was thwarted again soon after.

It was Schmeichel v Liverpool but finally he was beaten to end any doubt. Leicester failed to clear a corner – yes, again – and the ball was retrieved quickly with Joel Matip threading it through to Jota who spun with a first-time shot. Schmeichel got a hand to it but the ball trickled into the net to end any doubt.