Liverpool vs. Crystal Palace: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

A well-deserved win, at the end of a hectic schedule, with Diogo Jota scoring one and missing two big chances, as the Reds were brilliant for 70 minutes, then dogged and determined to the end.

But how can you have a fair game of football where, after 50 minutes, one side has been penalised for fouls 12 times, and the home team apparently didn’t make a single foul? It’s beyond all probabilities, to have such outcomes.

Arne Slot was turning into Jürgen Klopp, as that’s what the utterly shite PGMOL do to you. This is a theme, where the refs screw Liverpool to quite bizarre degrees in terms of game-management. At one point near the end of the first half it was over 80% possession to the Reds, and eight fouls to zero.

It was like Everton and other away games last season, where the officials refused to give anything to the Reds in the first half, and the let the home team do as they pleased.

Alas, Alisson is now out with an injury (albeit two weeks of it will affect only Brazil), with Vítězslav Jaroš on for his debut, and Palace could have had a penalty, but players have been allowed to drag on Mo Salah’s arm for seven years now.

An incredible nine wins from ten for Slot, and another clean sheet, with Palace mounting some late desperate pressure but not creating anything too clear cut, bar the Eberechi Eze shot Alisson clawed away.

And yes, while the Reds have not faced the toughest of schedules, the next ten games will also not necessarily reveal anything definitive either, given that it’s almost all Big Six teams, Brighton twice, and major European sides. However, win even half those games, and it will bode extremely well.

Right, onto the game.

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