Crystal Palace 0-1 Liverpool
by Gene Sylvester
at Selhurst Park

DESPITE Liverpool’s impressive record at Selhurst Park along with Crystal Palace’s winless start to the season, Arne Slot had vowed earlier this week not to take the trip to south London too lightly.

Liverpool are unbeaten at Selhurst Park over the last 12 games (10 wins and 2 draws) and eventually ran out 1-0 winners today ensuring that they remain top of the Premier League during the international break.

Palace came out of the traps scintillatingly, putting the ball into the back of Liverpool’s net within the first 30 seconds of the game but Eddie Nketiah’s effort was ruled out for offside.

Unfortunately for Oliver Glasner that wasn’t the sign of things to come for his side, as the away team dominated the ball from that point onwards throughout the first half.

And that dominance was rewarded in the ninth minute of the game when Diogo Jota finished off a flowing move for Arne Slot’s side that saw Kostas Tsimikas play a ball inside the Palace fullback Daniel Munoz and into Cody Gakpo’s run.

The flying Dutchman crossed low into the Crystal Palace box where Trevoh Chalobah looked favourite to clear, but the ex-Chelsea man was caught on his heels with Jota darting in front of him to poke his shot under the body of Dean Henderson, to put the away side 1-0 up.

Glasner’s boys were a different beast in the second half and 60th minute substitute Will Hughes was at the centre of most of the home team’s good work.

A couple of minutes after entering the field of play, Hughes nicked the ball off the usually press-resistant Gravenberch, playing the ball to fellow second half sub Jean-Philippe Mateta who in turn passed the ball on to Nketiah whose strike from the edge of the box was straight at Alisson Becker.

A few minutes later, Hughes was cutting through the Liverpool midfield again with the ball eventually breaking to Mateta who this time laid the ball off to Eberechi Eze, whose shot was punched away by Alisson.

The home side did have a penalty shout when Virgil van Dijk appeared to quit blatantly pull Marc Guehi by the arm as the Palace captain attempted to get onto the end pro a cross into the box. 

VAR had a look at it but no penalty was given, much to the dismay of Palace boss Glasner.

“This is not a discussion for me. Guehi wants to go for the ball and a player uses two hands to pull him back. This is a penalty.”

Palace’s best chance to get something out of the game came in the 83rd minute following an important challenge in midfield by Hughes who was stronger than Alexander-Arnold in the challenge.

The ball broke to Mateta who carried the ball upfield, releasing it to the unmarked Eze as he neared Liverpool’s box, but the Palace wideman seemed to rush his shot and fired straight at substitute keeper Vitezslav Jaros when there was a huge gap at the keeper’s near post to exploit.

“Eze will be thinking a lot about his missed chance,” said Palace manager Glasner after the game. “But we will give support to him.”

Liverpool’s win made it nine wins out of 10 games in all competitions for coach Slot, making it the best start for any Liverpool manager, but the Dutchman reiterated his comments from last week of wanting to be remembered for bigger achievements in the future.

“It’s very special, but I hope they don’t only remember me in five years for this alone.”