Eagles Hold Liverpool To Point And Could Have Taken More

Palace made it 5 draws in 6 games which is quite a run of results but this was a performance against a Liverpool side struggling to find any kind of form and on another night the hosts could well have ended up with all three points.

TIME/ DATE/ VENUE

• 7.45pm
• 25^th February 2023
• Selhurst Park, Holmesdale Road, London SE25 6PU

RESULT

Crystal Palace 0-0 Liverpool

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 2 Joel WARD, 4 Luka MILIVOJEVIC, 18 James MCARTHUR, 19 Will HUGHES, 26 Chris RICHARDS, 29 Naouriou AHAMADA, 41 Joe WHITWORTH,

OPPOSITION LINE-UP

UNSED SUBSTITUTES – 17 Curtis JONES, 21 Konstantinos TSIMIKAS, 26 Fabio CARVALHO, 46 Rhys WILLIAMS, 62 Caoimhin KELLEHER

TEB VERDICT

Another draw secured in a testing run of fixtures can be the solid foundation to what may lay ahead once Palace have navigated both Manchester City and Arsenal.

However, this was a very hard working performance against a struggling Liverpool side who still presented a number of dangers to the hosts but they were dealt with for the most part.

The Palace midfield had been much criticised heading into the January transfer window but the pairing of Dououre and Lokonga is blossoming under the guidance of Patrick Vieira and this was a solid performance from the two of them. The loan signing from Arsenal went under the radar a fair bit but he could end up being an important bit of business.

All in all, this was a very good point from a battling Palace side who were solid at the back even if they were found wanting somewhat going forward.

BOB’S POINT OF VIEW

Bob White was a coach at Palace under the tenure of Steve Coppell and Alan Smith and will be sharing his point of view each week in our review article.

“A solid performance resulting in a well earned point. Defensively we have certainly improved over the past few games restricting the opposition to a minimum of goal scoring opportunities. Consequently we have become a difficult team to beat which is a decent attribute to have in this competitive league. On the flip side, we still look light up top. Apart from the constant threat Olise presented to the Liverpool defence, we failed to put a shaky defence under real pressure. Unfortunately the couple of good chances we created were spurned. The central midfield axis of Doucoure and Lokonga was very effective regularly breaking up Liverpool possession in key areas. In summary a good all round hard working team performance with Guehi producing a top class display confirming him as my man of the match.”

POST GAME QUOTES

PATRICK VIEIRA

“I liked the competitiveness, fight and spirit we showed today. In the first half we started well and were growing into the game. We had a couple of good chances. They started the second half much better than us. It was important for us to not concede and then we could get back into the game.

“We had chances and didn’t score. It’s the frustration of the season so far. This is one area we need to keep working. Those chances are there, we just need to score those goals.

“It’s part of building confidence. Those players have the quality. It’s just forcing that luck. JP hit the crossbar, it was really unlucky. He took it well.”

“You want to win games. My players deserve to have more points because they do everything well. Today we were missing that goal. We have to stay calm and keep believing. If we play like this we’ll win games.”

JURGEN KLOPP

“Clean sheet brilliant, that’s what you want. A point, okay. It’s really similar to all the games we’ve played here in recent years. The difference is we didn’t score. The longer the game went on the more Palace came up. Our style was really good. There was no atmosphere, people weren’t happy with the way Palace played – because of us.

“We had three big chances. One of them should be in and fine. They hit the crossbar but didn’t hit the target. We lost balls at the wrong moment. We have to stop that. Today we reacted much better to that. Mistakes will always happen, you just have to react in the right way and they did.

“Palace were really compact. This is a game and a situation where you don’t score five goals, especially if you don’t score the first one.”

MATCH STATISTICS

POSITION IN THE TABLE (at the final whistle)

UPCOMING FIXTURES

04/03/23 Aston Villa (a) – Premier League (3pm)

11/03/23 Manchester City (h) – Premier League (5.30pm)

15/03/23 Brighton (a) – Premier League (7.30pm)

19/03/23 Arsenal (a) – Premier League (2pm)