Soccer

Jota scrapes Liverpool past Crystal Palace as Alisson exits with injury

Brazilian goalkeeper forced off in the second half, giving Vítzslav Jaros his debut

Liverpool's Diogo Jota scores the only goal of the game at Selhurst Park. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
Liverpool's Diogo Jota scores the only goal of the game at Selhurst Park. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
John Brewin
Sat Oct 05 2024 - 15:00
Premier League: Crystal Palace 0 Liverpool 1 (Diogo Jota 9)

Liverpool is a club that lives on emotions. There’s be no shame in that. What else is football for than a swell of feelings? But if it was love at first sight with Jürgen Klopp, when will the faithful fall for Arne Slot? A superb start to the season, top of the table when it was supposed to be Arsenal and Manchester City streaking away, he could hardly have done a better job. Too cool for school? Possibly. A hangover from those last days of the Klopp romance ending so bittersweetly? Almost certainly.

Slot himself is happy to be stay cool, distant. “Brilliant would have been nine wins out of nine,” he demurred before kick-off. There will be no touchline pogo, no bearlike screams, even if he can be demonstrative from the technical area.

After Palace’s last season’s improvements under Oliver Glasner, it is a campaign of struggles so far. They started as one of five clubs yet to register a win. The wait goes on, a decline that has precipitated Eberechi Eze and Adam Wharton’s demotion from England duties. Michael Olise is sorely missed. Eze finds space much harder to come by without his partner in crime. Wharton, still aged only 20 is struggling with his workload. There were only fleeting signs of the player he looked in spring but he still played part in a move from which Palace might have been ahead in the first minute. Wharton played in Ismaïla Sarr, only for Eddie Nketiah to trigger the offside trap.

Slot’s selection was a reshuffle of the legacy left by Klopp, and paid off for his team’s ninth-minute winner. Kostas Tsimikas stood in for Andy Robertson, not quite himself of late, and the Greek left-back’s beautiful ball found Cody Gakpo, in the wide role he made his name as with PSV, to slot in Diogo Jota. Liverpool’s best finisher stole ahead of Trevoh Chalobah, the Palace debutant, to score. Three simple decisions, each paying dividends.

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For Glasner, the bad news kept rolling. Daniel Muñoz, the full-back whose arrival in January helped steady the ship, limped off. Palace spent much of the first half sat deep as Liverpool looked for a second, playing the patient fare alien during the ecstatic romance of the Klopp era. As multiple corners piled up, Liverpool’s players looked to Aaron Briggs, the set-piece coach, for guidance, Virgil van Dijk headed over towards the end of a first period where Liverpool’s dominance had Selhurst Park mollified.

Ryan Gravenberch, repurposed midfield stroller, is the most obvious regeneration under Slot but until some desperate – and effective – defending in the latter stages, the rest exhibit an organisation often surrendered by the previous incumbent.

The second-half Slot strategy appeared to be shutting down the game, sitting deep and inviting pressure to trigger a counter. Perhaps where he has so far lost out in Liverpool supporters’ affections is such dispassionate pragmatism. Glasner rejigged, Wharton replaced by Will Hughes, and Jean-Philippe Mateta joining the attack. The Frenchman immediately set up Nketiah for a poked hit that a sprawling Alisson saved well as Palace, at last, began to bubble.

Still. Jota ought have closed the contest. Again on Briggs’ instruction, Trent Alexander-Arnold planted a free-kick on his head, only for the striker to head horribly wide. Would Liverpool live to regret that? Or finish the job? A Gakpo dribble set up half-time arrival Dominik Szoboszlai for an effort that planted in Henderson’s midriff. Next, Eze forced a save from Alisson, who scrambled away the resulting corner. That was the last of the Brazilian’s actions. The goalkeeper departed with an injury, replaced by Vítzslav Jaros, the Czech making his first Liverpool appearance.

Slot’s temper began to boil on the sidelines at his team’s problems in clearing their lines. When Eze, now finding space, galloped in on goal, Jaros’s first test arrived. He saved well, clasping the ball to his chest, Eze having failed to find enough purchase. Liverpool could close out their win, continue that exemplary start. If the thrill of the chase is not what it was under Klopp, their chances of success look just as real as they did in the wild and crazy years. – Guardian