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Liverpool and Crystal Palace both put their unbeaten records on the line as they met in a rematch of the Community Shield.
Oliver Glasner made one change to the team that beat West Ham, as Ismaïla Sarr replaced Will Hughes, seeing Daichi Kamada drop back into midfield.
After making mass changes in mid-week for the League Cup, Arne Slot mostly returned to the side that started the Merseyside derby, with Cody Gakpo and the suspended Hugo Ekitiké the only two to miss out, replaced by Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak.
These minor changes in personnel did seem to necessitate significant changes for Liverpool though. Rather than staying wide like Gakpo, Wirtz would come inside into the middle, so this meant Milos Kerkez would push forward to provide width on the left, which in turn saw Alexis Mac Allister pull out to the left to provide a passing option.
These changes, combined with Ryan Gravenberch frequently pushing up, meant there was no one at the base of the midfield to progress the ball through the middle.
Now, this wasn’t completely without its benefits. As Chris Richards was initially reluctant to follow him too far, this left space for Wirtz to drop in and pass forward, although Richards soon began to follow Wirtz much higher, denying him this space.
All these players pushing forward meant that Palace’s back five were all occupied, so when Conor Bradley combined with Mohamed Salah on the right, he was able to get some space to cross.
If Liverpool had no one to progress the ball through the middle though, then that meant they inevitably had to go wide.
Palace quickly punished this. With no one to pass to in front of him, Virgil van Dijk attempted a cross-field ball to Bradley, which Tyrick Mitchell quickly rushed out to intercept. Palace then broke forward on the counter, winning themselves a corner.
At this corner Mac Allister was left alone with the three runners around the penalty spot. He tried to follow Marc Guéhi’s run, only to be blocked off by Adam Wharton, and, although Gravenberch won this aerial battle, his header went in the wrong direction just as Wataru Endo’s had in mid-week. The ball then fell to the other runner, Sarr, who had been left completely untracked to score yet another goal against Liverpool.
Palace then nearly doubled their lead immediately after. Ibrahima Konaté pushed forward on the ball, but had no one to pass to and quickly found himself cornered. Palace then robbed him of it and broke forward on the counter again. It was only the brilliance of Alisson Becker that saved Liverpool’s blushes.
The Reds eventually made adjustments so that they now had someone at the base of the midfield, and this helped to draw out Palace’s midfielders, opening up space behind them. However with five defenders in the Palace backline, they were able to step out to stop Liverpool’s players going free without leaving significant gaps in defence.
Liverpool were also having some problems out of possession though. Their defensive shape saw Isak and Salah split wide on the outside centre-backs, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wirtz pick up the deep midfielders, while Mac Allister and Gravenberch would track Sarr and Yeremy Pino. With Pino often pushing forward alongside Jean-Philippe Mateta, this would see Gravenberch dropping back into defence to follow him.
The obvious problem with this approach was that it left Maxence Lacroix free in the centre of defence, enabling him to pick out a pass, or to push forward on the ball, although Wirtz would move across to stop him advancing too far.
Another problem with this approach was that while the man-marking in midfield saw Liverpool get tight to their opponents to deny them space, if Palace could get away from their markers, then they had acres of space to cut through Liverpool, as Liverpool’s midfielders were drawn away to follow their own men rather positioning themselves on hand to cover.
After a disastrous first half, Slot reverted to a more usual set-up, with Bradley substituted for Gakpo, seeing Wirtz move back inside as Szoboszlai was shifted to right-back.
This gave Liverpool a more solid footing in the game, no longer leaking chances, but as Palace had a lead, they were happy to sit back and defend it. The game became the usual attack versus defence format, with Liverpool having to break down Palace’s low block.
They didn’t really have any success doing this. They had plenty of the ball, moving it from side to side, but failed to really shift Palace’s defenders about, leaving little space to actually create chances.
Slot changed personnel rather than the system, becoming more and more attacking as he added Curtis Jones, Jeremie Frimpong, Federico Chiesa and Rio Ngumoha.
When Liverpool did claim their routine late goal, there wasn’t a great deal to it: they sent in a cross to a busy box, but Richards’ header didn’t clear the ball, instead falling to Chiesa to finish. It had been the brute force of just getting lots of attackers in the box that had got them their goal rather than any clever strategy.
Liverpool continued to push for a winner, but it would instead be Palace that emerged victorious. Liverpool’s attackers didn’t bother to track back at a throw-in, enabling Palace to easily find Eddie Nketiah inside and get men running at Liverpool’s backline.
His poor pass was seen out for another throw-in, but this time much deeper in Liverpool’s half, so Palace took the opportunity to push men forward.
Flinging the ball into a crowded box, it was nodded back and forth before finally falling to Nketiah at the back post to finish.
This was Liverpool’s worst performance of the season so far, only really rivalled by Newcastle, and this time there would be no rescue, dropping points for the first time while Palace’s unbeaten run continued.
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