Let’s deep dive into both teams’ performance and see how Liverpool came home with the 3 points in South London. This was a much closer game than we thought with Palace having a higher shot-on-target xG than Liverpool. Palace 0.85 – 0.75 Liverpool, on another day, this game is a draw.
Liverpool were on the front foot the entire match. They got started very quickly with Diogo Jota’s 2nd league goal of the season. From there, Liverpool continued dominating the chances for most of the match with a few scares after the introduction of Mateta.
In possession, Liverpool played with an inverted triangle, different than they normally do with Gravenberch sitting as the lone pivot with Mac Allister and Curtis Jones sitting in front. They got most of their success driving the play through their full backs and combining out wide using Tsimkias and Trent linking with Gakpo and Salah. These overloads created chances to drive at the Palace back line or to cross it in. Exhibit A: The Diogo Jota goal came from Tsimikas finding space for Gakpo behind Munoz. Simple ball for Gakpo then across the box for Jota to
After finding those spaces behind the Crystal Palace full backs, Liverpool were able to find a ton of balls into the box/just outside the box but once again were struggling with the finish.
Of the 18 shots Liverpool had, only 5 of them were on target.
That’s a shot on target rate of 28% which is quite poor. Before this match, Liverpool were shooting on target at a rate of 42% Because of this, they only had a Shot on Target xG of 0.75, not enough to get more than the goal they got today. But, I believe there is some positive regression in there for them moving forward.
Shifting to Crystal Palace, they had a very different plan. Glasner set up his team to sit and soak up pressure and try their luck on the counter. It would’ve actually worked if it were for some luck that didn’t go Palace’s way and you’ll see that in the next tweet. The decision to not start Mateta was interesting although Nketiah played quite well up front.
Crystal Palace basically had all their important shots hit the target and had a higher shot on target xG than Liverpool, 0.85 to Liverpool’s 0.75. On another day, one of those goes in and Palace walk away with a point from a very tough fixture.
This by no means was an easy match for Liverpool but they got the 3 points and that’s all that matters. Crystal Palace are due and will make their way out of the relegation zone soon, they are playing the right way, the luck just isn’t on their side so far.