Liverpool suffered their first defeat of the season as Eddie Nketiah\u2019s dramatic late winner secured a 2\u20131 victory for Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. The Reds looked sharper after the restart and appeared to have rescued a point when Federico Chiesa struck in the 87th minute, but Nketiah rolled the ball beyond Alisson to deny Liverpool an unblemished start.<\/p>\n
The home side dominated large periods, and Palace should have been further ahead by the midpoint of the first half. Sarr opened the scoring from close range after poor defending from a corner, and three more goal-bound efforts were thwarted only by Alisson\u2019s reflexes. Had it not been for the goalkeeper, Liverpool would have been well beaten by half time.<\/p>\n
Defensive frailty has been a recurring theme for Liverpool so far, and Saturday\u2019s display offered little reassurance. Quick, direct Palace runners exposed holes in the back line repeatedly. Slot must adapt the team\u2019s approach to make them more resilient at the back as the season progresses.<\/p>\n
Arne Slot also addressed the fallout from midweek matters. Slot refused to mince his words when discussing Hugo Ekitik\u00e9’s ridiculous red card in Liverpool’s midweek Carabao Cup victory over Southampton. The Frenchman\u2019s dismissal, for a second yellow taken after removing his shirt, resulted in suspension and meant Liverpool could not call on him at Selhurst Park.<\/p>\n
That absence mattered. Alexander Isak, started in Ekitik\u00e9\u2019s place and struggled to impose himself in an underwhelming Liverpool performance. He looked brighter after the interval but fired a gilt-edged chance wide when he should have scored. The inability to introduce Ekitik\u00e9 from the bench deprived Slot of fresh legs to test Palace\u2019s five-man defence before Chiesa\u2019s late strike.<\/p>\n
Florian Wirtz drew attention when deployed on the left. The \u00a3116 million midfielder has yet to register a goal or assist for Liverpool and has looked anonymous at times, struggling with the Premier League\u2019s physicality. He offered more when moved centrally but tamely redirected a shot into Dean Henderson\u2019s hands from six yards and was withdrawn in the 74th minute.<\/p>\n
Palace\u2019s defensive display, led by skipper Marc Gu\u00e9hi, was impressive. Gu\u00e9hi finished with three tackles, seven clearances and an interception, and he provided the assist for Nketiah\u2019s winner. Liverpool are left to rue missed chances and defensive lapses as their perfect run came to an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nketiah’s late goal ended Liverpool’s perfect start; defence exposed and Wirtz’s form worrying. read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[465,175,969],"tags":[195,355,299],"class_list":["post-3157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crystal-palace","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-alexander-isak","tag-alisson-becker","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}