“You must be sick of us,” the Crystal Palace fans sang, and Liverpool could only concur. Alan Pardew’s team inflicted the first defeat of the Jürgen Klopp era with their third consecutive Premier League victory over the men from Anfield. One month into the job and Klopp is au fait with Liverpool’s problem club.
Goals from the excellent Yannick Bolasie and Scott Dann, a former Anfield season-ticket holder, gave Palace their latest Merseyside triumph. Pardew has now been involved in all three of Palace’s league wins at Anfield, as a player in 1991 and twice as a manager in 2015, and Liverpool again struggled against his enterprising tactics. Klopp was dismayed by both the outcome and the number of early leavers after Dann scored in the 82nd minute.
The former Borussia Dortmund coach had a point; this was an absorbing contest and Christian Benteke squandered several chances, but the visitors’ defence and counter-attacking play were outstanding. It was the perfect combination for an eye-catching away win.
“We made a conscious decision to take the game to Liverpool,” said Pardew, who had promised his players an extra day off this week in the event of victory. “I said to the players that the problem with this team is it doesn’t trust how good it can be. We proved that when we backed off and allowed Liverpool to dominate but once we went toe-to-toe with them we held our own. It is difficult to do that at these big arenas like Liverpool and Manchester United. In the last two games we have defended brilliantly and it has got us four massive points against two big clubs.”
Steven Gerrard was in the crowd for the first time since departing for Los Angeles and must have had flashbacks to his last appearance at Anfield. Palace started in the same dominant fashion that ruined his Liverpool farewell in May, with Pardew’s deployment of Bolasie alongside Bakary Sako in attack unnerving the home defence.
Bolasie, outstanding in Palace’s 3-1 win last season, once again troubled Liverpool with his pace and touch. Only after the Congo international had given the visitors a deserved lead did Klopp’s team find the urgency, accuracy and energy demanded. They could not sustain it and a potentially serious knee injury to Mamadou Sakho compounded the new manager’s misery. “I would rather lose 4-1 and keep him in the team,” said Klopp about the France defender, who will have a scan on Monday.
Palace punished several defensive lapses from Liverpool in opening the scoring. Sako rode a weak challenge from Alberto Moreno to release Wilfried Zaha down the right. Emre Can made a hash of clearing Zaha’s low cross, Bolasie reacted quicker to the loose ball than Lucas Leiva, captain for the day in the absence of the injured Jordan Henderson and James Milner, and beat Simon Mignolet with an unstoppable finish from 10 yards.
Liverpool looked like a team that had made a 5,000-mile round trip to Kazan in midweek but the breakthrough woke them from their lethargy. Jordon Ibe and Nathaniel Clyne began to dominate the right wing, Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana found space behind Palace’s midfield shield and the visitors struggled to break in numbers.
Benteke forced Wayne Hennessey into his first save of the game with a textbook header from Ibe’s corner and wasted a good chance from Lallana’s inviting pass. The equaliser arrived from an excellent team move that sent Klopp high-fiving into the supporters behind his dugout. Ibe released Clyne on the right of the penalty area, Lallana flicked the full-back’s cross towards the far post and, just as he did at Stamford Bridge last weekend, Coutinho brought Liverpool level with an emphatic shot beyond Hennessey.
An open game continued to flow and both sides had cause to regret their finishing in the second half. Benteke, who struggled throughout, shot over from Coutinho’s through ball, headed over from Moreno’s cross and over-elaborated inside the area when put clear by the Brazilian. Sako wasted a better opening for Palace, hitting the side netting from six yards after Bolasie’s break and cross from the right had left the striker with only Mignolet to beat.
Klopp replaced the poor Can with Roberto Firmino and switched to a 4-1-4-1 formation but the changes prompted an improvement only from Palace, who retook the lead with eight minutes remaining. Liverpool fan Dann towered over Firmino to head Yohan Cabaye’s corner goalwards, Mignolet parried the effort but straight back to the defender who steered his second header into the top corner. “Scott had about 15 family members here today,” said Pardew. “I think he has been really underestimated throughout his career but now I manage him I realise how good he is. He was superb in everything he did.”
