Moments of Quality

[Liverpool 3 – 1 Crystal Palace].

Games like this are so often decided by those elusive moments of quality. They seem to drag along with neither team really having a decisive edge, and then someone does something brilliant and everything changes. Today, Liverpool produced three such brilliant moments, and the Reds did it against their current bogey team.

It really has been tiring to keep losing to Palace.

The first moment came with Isak. Yes, he is clearly still rusty, but his goal today was a vivid reminder of what we can expect of him when he’s fully fit. Macca wasn’t passing to Isak, it was a shot, but Isak took it in stride with a truly outstanding first touch. And then came his shot. I’m still not sure whether he fluffed it with enough power and accuracy to score anyway, or whether he intended to hit it into the ground to get that outrageous bounce. I’m leaning towards the latter. Regardless, there was malice in that shot, anger at the ball, the goal, and all the football gods, and it had nowhere to end but the back of the net.

Liverpool had broken through the drudgery.

Then came Woodman’s big moment, with a fantastic instinctual save in front of the kop, a ball I’m sure everyone behind the goal thought was going in. Woodman did that again a few minutes later, but in that moment, his save was directed at Konate, who sent the ball forward to Wirtz, who in turn drew several Palace players to him before releasing a downright visionary pass towards Curtis Jones, thereby taking six or seven Palace players out of the play. Curtis, in turn, found Robbo with a perfect pass, and Robbo decided to gift us with a striker’s finish that Henderson could do nothing about.

It was a brilliant team goal, a rapid series of quality moments strung together to produce an aria in red.

The game then went back to its slower pace, which lasted right until Woodman hit the ground hard with his knee and Munoz scored by lobbing the ball to an open net while the Liverpool keeper was bundled on the ground in pain. I do not fault Munoz for scoring in that moment; he did the right thing for his team. I do, however, fault our players who should have stayed awake, perhaps fouling Munoz before he had an opportunity to finish it off. Putting that aside, it looked like Armin Pecsi was set to go between the sticks, and Palace must have been licking their chops at the possibility to further cement their bogey status.

Thankfully, it was not to be, and Woodman, who made several good saves today, was able to recover and see the game off.

We were still not done, there was one last moment of quality in store. That came off a Gomez throw into the box, which ended with one Florian Wirtz producing one of the sweetest strikes of a bouncing football you’ll ever see. There was so much venom applied to that ball that it was glistening as it curled and spun its way towards the far post to finish off the visitors. Pure technique from the German, and it only gets better in slomo.

In fact, one could reasonably argue that Flo was man-of-the-match, but for me, one man was yet better, and that was the aforementioned Curtis Jones. Deputizing again in right back, he had a perfect game, always in the right place at the right time, dealing successfully and even gracefully with many difficult moments, with perfect positional and situational awareness every time. It was his performance that really kept Palace muted the way they were, and Curtis came off smelling like roses in every encounter with the likes of Wharton and Sarr, players who have inflicted much pain on Liverpool in the past year.

Before I sign off, it’s worth noting that somehow, even in a woeful season, Liverpool are now in fourth, and only out of third by a goal. Not quite aspirational for a team that should be fighting for silverware, perhaps, but in light of the way the season unfolded, especially with injuries and the large amount of turnover in the squad, this isn’t bad at all. Here’s hoping that one of those injuries, Mo Salah’s hamstring today, isn’t the end of his Liverpool career. He deserves one last game at Anfield.

And who knows? next season could, especially if the summer business is good, very well turn out magical.