Premier League 2018/19: 3 Reasons for Liverpool's victory over Crystal Palace
Liverpool extended their seven-point lead over Manchester City with a 4-3 win over Crystal Palace at Anfield. The Reds made three changes which saw Naby Keita come in for Xherdan Shaqiri, James Milner for Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Joel Matip for Gini Wijnaldum.
Jurgen Klopp's men had plenty of possession early on in the game but failed to create problems to Crystal Palace's defense. A breakaway through the left wing saw Wilfried Zaha pull the ball back to Andres Townsend who got an insane power to drill it past Alisson.
Teams headed back into the tunnel for the half time with a slender lead to the visitors. However, the Reds looked to have stamped the authority from minute one in the second half. Van Dijk's shot ricochets off a Palace player and kindly fell to Mohamed Salah who had a tricky touch to find the back of the net.
Nine minutes later, Roberto Firmino's goal was enough to lead the game. But, James Tomkins free header from a corner saw the scores becoming equal parity. Fabinho found James Milner with an excellent ball who got something of it, but the goalkeeper Julian Speroni made a bigger fuss out of it and lost the ball. The Egyptian was there once again to tap the ball in.
During the stoppage time, Sadio Mane's goal assured yet another victory despite Max Meyer pulling one back in the dying seconds of the game. At the end of the day in what turned out to be a totally bizarre performance defensively, Jurgen Klopp will be massively relieved with all three points against one of the teams in the league which can cause disruption.
In this piece, we shall look at three reasons why Liverpool were able to win this encounter against Crystal Palace.
#1 Liverpool were lucky throughout the game
Unlike every other season, Liverpool have some luck flowing this campaign. The late strike from Daniel Sturridge against Chelsea, a blunder from Pickford in the Merseyside Derby, and today's game proved that the Reds have not been misfortuned this term.
It was Crystal Palace who had an excellent half and took the lead through Townsend in the first half. However, with some first two goals were deflected and the third one was mishandled by the third choice goalkeeper Julian Speroni.
It was one among those games where Liverpool did not have much control with the ball. The defensive part of the game looked lacklustre throughout the game, thanks to constant trouble cost by Wilfried Zaha who tormented the makeshift right-back, James Milner.