A flattering 3-0 victory for Liverpool against a good Crystal Palace side, who were coming off an impressive display and win over Spurs.
It was always going to be a tough match for Liverpool after their heroic, emotional, draining midweek Champions League contest against AC Milan, and Jurgen Klopp rotated his team, bringing in Kostas Tsimikas for Andy Robertson, James Milner for Trent Alexander Arnold, reinstating Virgil van Dijk for Joe Gomez, giving Ibrahima Konate his debut alongside van Dijk ahead of Joel Matip, Thiago Alcantara starting for Naby Keita and Sadio Mané for Divock Origi.
The unusual lineup and particularly the shakeup in defence meant the Reds got off to a difficult start and within the first five minutes Palace could have scored twice, the best chance falling to Wilfried Zaha who poked the ball over a stranded Alisson Becker, only for the Brazilian to brilliantly improvise a save, pushing the goal-bound ball on to the post and behind for a corner.
After 25 minutes, the Reds finally began to take over the game, with Mané and Tsimikas linking up well on the left, with the Greek left back’s delivery always threatening.
Liverpool should have taken the lead on 37 minutes when a Jordan Henderson cross from the right was well met by a flying Thiago but his header was saved by the Palace keeper, Vicente Guaita, the ball falling two yards out to Diogo Jota who, inexplicably, blazed over the bar.
Despite the miss, Liverpool’s pressure did pay off five minutes later when from a corner Tsimikas found Mo Salah who had made a clever arcing run to the centre of the penalty area, his header saved again by Guaita but this time Mané made no mistake in lashing the ball home.
An even second half saw Palace always posing a threat and it would not have been against the run of play had they taken one of the many chances they created to bring the game level. Good goalkeeping from Becker, always in the right place at the right time, made the difference. Konate can be satisfied with his first game for Liverpool. Strong, quick, tenacious, excellent recovery capabilities, he didn’t look out of place in a Red shirt. Only once or twice did he caught – a poor clearance, a reasonable penalty shout against him – but this didn’t prove costly.
The game was in the balance until the 78th minute when another excellent Tsimikas corner caused havoc in the Palace area and the ball looped to the the back post where the outstanding Salah was lurking to venomously volley the ball into the back of the net and put Liverpool two up.
Palace were deflated, all their efforts had been in vain, and Liverpool were able to comfortably see out the last 10 minutes of the game, the icing on the cake being a cracking left-foot volley from the edge of the area on 89 minutes from Naby Keita – on for the injured Thiago – after a Salah corner from the right was punched out to him by the Palace keeper.
Next up for Liverpool is a Carabao Cup away tie against Norwich City on Tuesday, struggling to find any form in the Premier League after being promoted, having lost all five of their games, including a 3-0 defeat to Liverpool on the first day of the season. You would expect Klopp to make significant changes for the match, giving squad players the opportunity to stake a claim to a first-team role.
Liverpool’s next Premier League game is away at Brentford, who have got off to a flying start in their first season and are currently sitting ninth in the league, back in the top flight after 75 years, showing their quality in the early kickoff defeating Wolves away 2-0, despite playing the last third of the game with 10 men, after Shandon Baptiste was sent off for two yellow cards.
