By: Shane Brennan
Liverpool took on Crystal Palace on Monday evening in what was The Reds opening home fixture of the season, as Liverpool looked to bounce back from their opening day draw with Fulham, but what exactly did we learn?
The reds started extremely brightly as Trent Alexander-Arnold tried to pick out Darwin Nunez, the ball ended up falling for James Milner as he blasted the ball over the crossbar whilst being under pressure from Vicente Guaita.
Jurgen’s men then turned up the heat even more as Harvey Elliott tried to find a way through with a dancing run, but he was met with heroic Palace defending, this was swiftly followed by Alexander-Arnold crossing the ball into the box to find Nunez who unfortunately had a fresh air shot, as Liverpool’s intent was clear early on.
The intent didn’t stop as Liverpool continued to threatened down Palaces right side once again with Alexander-Arnold picking out Mohamed Salah, but The Reds lethal goal scorer could not find the target this time around as the ball went fractionally wide of Guaita’s post, as Palace survived a scare yet again.
Despite wave after wave of Liverpool pressure it was Crystal Palace who took the lead thanks to a fine ball from Eberechi Eze that put Wilfried Zaha clean through on goal up against Alisson Becker, as the Ivory Coast international managed to finish brilliantly to give the London side the lead , and in the process shock the Anfield crowd.
It could have very easily got worse for The Reds, this time Cheick Doucouré managed to set Zaha away, thankfully this time Alisson was able to get a big hand to the ball to keep the deficit to a minimum.
Right on the half time whistle Elliott found Nunez, and the big money signing could not produce a clinical finish as he scuffed his shot against the post and therefore a resilient Crystal Palace side had the lead at half time. Liverpool started the second half in a quiet manner passing the ball from side to side in front of a Palace white wall, as the crowd were getting increasingly anxious.
Things were to go from bad to worse as Joachim Andersen wound up Nunez and that resulted in Nunez head butting Andersen, and this action left Paul Tierney with no choice other than to show the Liverpool forward a straight red card. But as Liverpool do they managed to find an equaliser through a lovely solo run from Luis Diaz that ended in a lovely whipped finish into the back of The Kop net, as a tense thirty odd minutes lay ahead.
From that point on Liverpool tried to penetrate the Palace goal with very little success and the next real significant chance of the game was to come The Eagles way, as Zaha crashed his a shot against the post. Mohamed Salah nearly produced a moment of magic from a Kostas Tsimikas cross the ball fell for The Egyptian King nicely, sadly his attempt was to whistle just wide of the post. Fabio Carvalho was to have one final volley towards goal for Liverpool but it just simply wasn’t to be The Reds night as they drop four points in their opening two matches.
Stand out performances
Harvey Elliott
He looked really bright all night as he constantly created chances and space for his teammates to run into, whilst also trying tirelessly to make the break through himself.
Trent Alexander-Arnold
His crossing into the box was exceptional, as he tried consistently to provide chances for Elliott, Salah and Nunez, as Liverpool were clearly trying to play to the tall man’s strength.
