Liverpool beat Crystal Palace 2-1 at Selhurst Park on Saturday. The game showed why the Reds have the world’s best front-three – and one didn’t even play.
Liverpool didn’t play well. They struggled to create – no shots on target in the first half – and leaked chances throughout. And yet, they won again.
One key problem for Liverpool was that Palace did a very good job of nullifying the full-backs. Andy Robertson and, in particular, Trent Alexander-Arnold struggled to involve themselves, primarily because the Palace wingers kept high.
With the key creators limited, chances were lacking. Thank God Liverpool have the world’s best front-three, then.
Match-winners
Sadio Mane opened the scoring shortly into the second half, not long after he’d missed another good chance. Mane’s running and movement was causing problems.
And Roberto Firmino found the late winner, being in the right place at the right time at a corner. It was a messy, scrappy goal but it sealed three points – one of the biggest goals of the season, then.
Firmino, too, had missed a good chance earlier and that’s what really shines here. Even in a game where Liverpool struggle to create, their star front-three found multiple chances to score.
And one of them wasn’t even playing.
Mohamed Salah spent the game on the bench thanks to an ankle injury. Thus, the game was left to just two-thirds of the usual strike force.
They both stepped up, in the absence of Salah, to deliver the points. That’s what makes them the best in the world.
No other team has anything quite like it, where the players can just find a way to win you the game like that.
Liverpool have a front-three made up of match-winners. They don’t need much help, and they don’t even all need to be there, and they can win you a difficult game.
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