After a tricky European night against AC Milan on Wednesday, it was back to the bread and butter of the league for Liverpool as they hosted Crystal Palace.
It was all change for Liverpool as Jürgen Klopp made six personnel switches. The entire back four was swapped out, with Ibrahima Konaté making his debut alongside Virgil van Dijk, Kostas Tsimikas and James Milner, while Thiago Alcântara and Sadio Mané returned in place of Naby Keïta and Divock Origi. They set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Patrick Vieira kept with the same starting eleven that thrashed Tottenham Hotspur last week to give Palace their first win of the season, matching Liverpool’s 4-3-3 shape.
As they have done for pretty much every domestic match, Liverpool focussed their attack down the right, however, without Trent Alexander-Arnold or Harvey Elliott, this took on a different form against Palace.
The greatest concern when facing Palace is dealing with Wilfried Zaha and with Alexander-Arnold coming down with a case of “Zaha-itis“, 35-year-old Milner was called upon to keep watch over the Ivorian. The Yorkshireman still ventured forward to use his crossing, but, lacking the pace to play catch-up, he was very wary of allowing Zaha to get a run on him. As soon as there was any hint of danger, Milner would drop back into the defensive line.
In order to ease the attacking requirements on Milner, the width on the right was instead generally provided either by Mohamed Salah or Jordan Henderson. If Salah stayed wide then Henderson would make a run in the space through the centre and if Salah came inside, Henderson could instead go down the outside.
This allowed Milner to stay deeper, only venturing forward when an opportunity presented itself rather than having to to stretch the defence, so Milner could often be used as a passing option in the deeper areas. Fabinho also provided a passing option behind Salah and Henderson, shifting over towards the right so that Liverpool had four men on their right side to work the ball forward.
Fabinho was given the freedom to shift across like this thanks to the positioning of Thiago. The Spaniard would drop in next to Fabinho to help play out but this deeper positioning also helped to give defensive balance to the team: vertically, Henderson was given freedom to push forward safe in the knowledge that Thiago and Fabinho were holding back to act as cover behind him, while horizontally Fabinho could shift across to the right safe in the knowledge that Thiago was covering the left should anything go wrong.
This focus on the right actually created space for Tsimikas on the left to receive the ball from a switch of play, isolate Joel Ward and get in a cross. Mané sometimes helped him out wide, but typically the Senegalese tucked inside into the centre, with Diogo Jota the one more frequently drifting wide to link up with Tsimikas. This meant Liverpool were mainly operating on the right, but they weren’t predictable and this ability to switch play out to the left ensured Palace weren’t able to simply overload their left side and crowd out the Reds.
Liverpool completely dominated the first half, having 70% of possession. After giving Liverpool a fright in the opening minutes, Palace found themselves struggling to attack. Finding it difficult to play through the Liverpool’s pressing in the midfield, most of the time Palace simply looked to hit direct passes in behind for the forwards to chase, handing possession back to Liverpool. They weren’t even catching Liverpool out of position, as typically these passes would come after a string of non-threatening passes in their own half, meaning Liverpool had already been given time to recover before the attacking pass came. They would at least push Conor Gallagher forward, creating a four-versus-four against Liverpool’s backline, while James McArthur stayed back next to Cheickhou Kouyaté, but spent most of the half retreating into a 4-5-1 shape.
Despite Liverpool dominating in open play, all of their goals came from corners. Just before half-time they took the lead through Mané’s hundredth goal for the club. With McArthur failing to get tight to Salah, the Egyptian was able to make a run from the far side towards the near side, with McArthur’s attempt at following him blocked by the crowd of players around the penalty spot. Vicente Guaita saved Salah’s initial header, but, with Ward deserting Mané in a panicked attempt to pick up Salah, the Senegalese was left free to tap in the rebound.
Salah once again found himself free for Liverpool’s second. Substitute Jairo Riedewald was marking him but simply let him go, leaving the Egyptian free to finish in the six-yard box.
Riedewald was again too far away from his man for the final goal, but it wasn’t his fault this time. Guaita came out to punch away the cross, however he collided with Marc Guéhi, causing him to fall to the ground. Riedewald had been keeping an eye on substitute Keïta on the edge of the area, but, seeing the ball crossed into the box, dropped back to support his defenders, only for Guaita’s punch to fall directly to Keïta to volley home. Having to scramble to his feet, the shot was nearly past Guaita already by the time he could start his jump, giving him no chance of saving it.
Palace had more of the ball in the second half, introducing Odsonne Edouard, engaging Liverpool higher up the pitch and getting the ball into attack quicker, handed momentum by Liverpool dropping off into a 4-5-1 more frequently, but they rarely actually threatened before Liverpool sealed their win.
It was an unusual way of winning for a club that used to have a fanzine called Another Wasted Corner.
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