With Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Naby Keïta away at the African Cup of Nations, Liverpool would be without all their goalscorers from the Anfield round of this match-up.
Jürgen Klopp made two changes to the side that sealed their place in the League Cup final on Thursday against Arsenal, replacing Caoimhin Kelleher and Kaide Gordon with Alisson Becker and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Crystal Palace had a much longer break – arguably too long – having last played in their derby match against Brighton nine days prior. Patrick Vieira made two changes to that side, replacing Jack Butland and Eberechi Eze with Vincent Guaita and Jean-Philippe Mateta. Palace also lined up in a 4-3-3 shape.
Liverpool may have been without their African stars but they managed to score in the exact same way as they had in September: from a corner. With Palace using a man-marking system, they left space at the near post for Virgil van Dijk to sprint into and head home. Joachim Andersen was meant to be marking him, but Fabinho stood between them, blocking the Dane from being able to stick tight to Van Dijk, while Jeffrey Schlupp, himself deserting his man Fabinho, also got in Andersen’s way as the defender tried to chase after the Dutchman. It was a very blunt exploitation of the weaknesses of man-marking: with Palace following men rather than protecting the most dangerous areas, they left a big obvious space for Liverpool to attack, while, by simply stopping markers from being able to get close to their men, Liverpool could free those men to attack the space.
Liverpool had been controlling the match in open play even before the goal. Palace would sit back in a 4-5-1 shape, but, given space, Joël Matip was willing to push forward on the ball. Mateta would come across to meet him, usually curving his run to block the pass over to Van Dijk, but he was usually too far to effectively stop Matip advancing, so Schlupp had to step out of the midfield line to close down the Cameroonian. With Mateta deserting Fabinho and Schlupp pulled out of the midfield, Liverpool would suddenly outnumber Palace in this area though, so the Reds found it easy to simply pass around the midfielders to progress the ball through the centre.
On the opposite side, Curtis Jones was finding little pockets of space to receive the ball and help progress it. If Conor Gallagher was drawn forward to stop Jones, then this only opened up space for Diogo Jota behind him.
Liverpool doubled their lead by playing through Palace’s midfield. Schlupp stepped up to pressure Matip, who played inside to Fabinho, drawing Gallagher forward. With Gallagher drawn forward and Will Hughes following Jordan Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jota had space between the lines, although they were unable to exploit it due to a tricky-to-control pass to Oxlade-Chamberlain from Henderson. The same thing happened again though: Schlupp and Gallagher were drawn forward, and Fabinho just squeezed a pass around them to Oxlade-Chamberlain, who knocked it quickly on to Trent Alexander-Arnold to pass inside to Jota in space. Jota switched play out to Andy Robertson on the left as Jones made a run out to the flank to occupy Joel Ward, giving Robertson the space to cut inside, get his head up and cross to Oxlade-Chamberlain at the far post. The goal raised questions about the grey areas of the offside rule, as Roberto Firmino was offside but deemed not to be interfering with play – the Brazilian hadn’t directly touched the ball or blocked the defenders’ lines of sight, but he did jump to head it, ensuring Tyrick Mitchell came inside to meet him, which opened up space for Oxlade-Chamberlain to finish.
Needing to get back into the game, Palace changed to a 4-4-2 shape, with Odsonne Edouard partnering Mateta and Schlupp moving out to the left to take his spot.
Having run up a comfortable lead, it should have been easier than ever for Liverpool to shut the game down and yet they found themselves on the back foot. Two sloppy passes allowed Palace to pounce and break forward on the counter-attack before half-time. This should have provided significant enough warning for Liverpool.
With two major chances for Palace coming just before half-time, the team talk was already prepared: you have the lead, frustrate Palace for a bit and regain control. What did Liverpool do immediately after coming out for the second half? Concede two more chances.
Less than ten minutes into the second half, Palace pulled a goal back. Despite already being two goals up, Liverpool pressed Palace high, pushing their midfielders and full-backs forward to try and hem Palace in. Liverpool were likely trying to press Palace in order to stop them from playing out and thus regain control but it didn’t match up with the reality of the game: since switching to the 4-4-2, Mateta and Edouard matched up man-for-man against Van Dijk and Matip, while Michael Olise and Schlupp were running in behind Liverpool’s full-backs. Palace were trying to play direct, sprinting in behind Liverpool’s backline, as their chances either side of half-time were making clear, so pushing forward to press them was simply playing into Palace’s hands, giving them space to attack behind Liverpool.
With Liverpool pressing, Palace pumped the ball forward, and Matip’s header fell to Schlupp tucking inside free in midfield. Liverpool’s backline tried to maintain their line despite there being little pressure on the ball, allowing Mateta to time his run to go one-on-one with Alisson, before squaring the ball to Edouard to roll into the empty net.
Likewise, Liverpool weren’t helping themselves in possession. They already had a comfortable lead and so could easily simply maintain possession and frustrate Palace, yet instead they continued to hurry forward, pushing the midfielders and full-backs into attack. This made another Liverpool goal more likely, but it also meant they opened themselves up for when Palace regained possession, pushing men ahead of the ball rather than holding them back in good counter-pressing positions.
Liverpool began to sit back rather than pressing, allowing the midfielders and full-backs to maintain their positions to protect their centre-backs. Introducing Takumi Minamino for Oxlade-Chamberlain also helped defensively as the Japanese would drop back to add defensive width to the midfield, although this led to a strange lopsided shape rather than a real 4-4-2, as Jota would remain out towards the left and Firmino wouldn’t shift across to the right, meaning that Marc Guéhi was often left free in possession without Minamino pushing up onto him.
This cleared up many of the issues Liverpool had, however their insistence on the high line undid much of this work. Liverpool’s forwards would sit back to start protecting the defence, but this left the Palace defenders with time on the ball to pick out passes over the top, while the high line gave them lots of space to aim for. It mainly worked, catching Palace’s forwards offside on several occasions, but it also afforded Palace big chances when the defence could have just as easily dropped off and headed the ball away.
Liverpool sealed their win with a laughable penalty decision. If Liverpool’s second benefited from certain grey areas in the rules, then their third took it to its tenuous limits, as Guaita did make contact with Jota rather than the ball, but only after Jota had lost any control over it and the goalkeeper’s challenge certainly couldn’t constitute dangerous play – it was a classic example of a referee knowing the rules (and in this case even that was up for debate), but not the game. The move that led to it was remarkably similar to that which sealed Liverpool’s win against Arsenal in mid-week, with Alexander-Arnold finding Jota with a long ball in behind.
All the Liverpool players’ comments after the game were about how difficult a place Selhurst Park is to visit, but it didn’t really ring true: they were cruising to a 2-0 victory half an hour in. It was Liverpool making things difficult for themselves by failing to display even the mildest grasp of game management. What made it all the more frustrating was that this is a Liverpool team that knows how to do that – it was how they won the 2019-20 Premier League – so why exactly have they seemingly completely forgotten all of the techniques they used that season? Why are they not only failing to learn their lessons but seemingly unlearning lessons they have already learned?
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One response
Great post. Liverpool’s decision to not press while playing a high line made absolutely zero sense. No team should have that much faith in their offside trap.