Nunez Sees Red As Palace Hold Liverpool To Earn First Point

Once again a trip to Anfield for the Eagles was only ever expected to be one sided, but a good away showing saw Patrick Vieira’s men return to South London with a well earned point.

DATE/VENUE

15^th August 2022 – Anfield, Anfield Road, Liverpool L4 0TH

RESULT

Liverpool 1-1 Crystal Palace

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 14 Jean-Philippe MATETA, 21 Sam JOHNSTONE, 23 Malcolm EBIOWEI, 48 Luke PLANGE

OPPOSITION LINE-UP

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 8 Naby KEITA, 13 ADRIAN, 42 Bobby CLARK, 43 Stefan BAJCETIC, 72 Sepp van den BERG

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.

“I would sense many of our fans were scratching their heads at our starting line-up but the 5-4-1 certainly frustrated Liverpool for long spells. Zaha cut an isolated figure at times but actually had three very good goal scoring opportunities, taking one chance with a top class finish after an incisive pass by Eze. Although the Nunez head butt fully deserved a red card, from our solid shape both blunting Liverpool’s attack and quietening the Anfield crowd, it only appeared to galvanise their players and fans. A quality goal to equalise put us on the back foot for the next period of the game but we rallied, regained our organisation and discipline to fully earn the point. It was definitely an excellent team performance and credit to Vieira for preparing us to mainly nullify Liverpool’s obvious attacking prowess, and a good platform to build on. My man of the match was Nathaniel Clyne – outstanding performance.”

TEB VERDICT

A very professional performance from Palace deserved more plaudits that it has got rather than what the opposition did not manage to do. The visitors held their never when up against it but took the lead with a superbly taken goal from Wilfried Zaha. Not only that, in the build up, Vicente Guaita picked Eberechi Eze who himself dropped his should to take Fabinho out of the game to put Wilf through.

There is a little disappointment that we are not celebrating all three points, particularly after the hosts deservedly went down to ten men after a ridiculous head-butt by their new star striker on Joachim Andersen, but Zaha could well have had a hat-trick but taking a point at Anfield is not to be sniffed at. We are on the board with a goal and a point, so bring on Villa at the weekend.

POST GAME QUOTES

PATRICK VIEIRA – “I am really pleased. It is not an easy place to come and we defended well as a team. We were prepared to suffer and did. In our counter-attacks we were good. We needed a big team performance and we had it tonight. When we won the ball Wilf ran in behind and the timing of his run was really good. Wilf is a goalscorer. Today he could score more than one.

When you come to these places you accept you will go through difficult periods. It is about how you manage those and I think we did it will. The first 20 minutes, half an hour was tough but we were really composed, calm and disciplined. That helped us perform well.

If we don’t bring those ingredients, it is really difficult to get something from that game. We competed against them and worked hard. This is the minimum we can do. Then we need the organisation and discipline. We got the point and I am really pleased with that.”

JURGEN KLOPP – “I cannot really be disappointed with the result because of the story of the game. I am proud of the performance. This was a proper LFC game, the way we started and put them under pressure. Palace had an idea, to sit deep and look for counter attacks. It is really uncomfortable to play against them, especially with the quality, speed and technique they have. I don’t know how many shots they blocked in the first half.

At half-time, positive talk to get back to how we started but then there was a struggle. Everything was in place and then we get the red card and it was a red card – provocation but still a red card. The reaction was absolutely outstanding. Luis scored a worldy and their players fought with all they had.

MATCH STATISTICS

POSITION IN THE TABLE

UPCOMING FIXTURES

20/08/22 Aston Villa (h) – Premier League (3pm)

23/08/22 Oxford United (a) – League Cup (7.45pm)

27/08/22 Manchester City (a) – Premier League (3pm)