Here’s Dominic Fifield’s match report. I’ll be off now. Thanks for everything. Bye!
Jamie Carragher is enjoyably furious about everything:
This is more than just a poor start, there’s something wrong. Mentally weak, no leadership on the pitch, and as a Liverpool fan, the worst thing you can ever see is them being bullied, and being weak, and that’s what we’ve seen today, and not for the first time. It’s been happening all season. Liverpool aren’t being beat by quality, they’re being bullied, they’re being beaten by enthusiasm. After the goal Liverpool offered no enthusiasm, no threat. They’re mentally and physically weak. There’s no leadership there. It was the same last year. I’m very worried as a Liverpool fan. Talk about players taking time to settle in, but you’re looking at them and thinking, they need four or five players.
If you look in the team, there’s no men in the team. There’s not enough people organising in there. Sometimes you’ve got to grind results out. There’s no confidence there so you’ve got to grind through. A game like that’s a perfect illustration. You dig in, you nick a 2-1, or take a 1-1. Liverpool rarely if ever play badly and win. Great last year, playing well, winning games. But when they play badly they just get rolled over.
Mile Jedinak has spoken! Bolasie also spoke, but everything he said was incredibly dull, so let’s stick with Jedinak:
We needed that big time. We knew it was going to be a difficult game, and we didn’t help ourselves by conceding so early, but the guys up front created mayhem and we kept it tight at the back after the goal. We’re ecstatic.
Character was important. We’ve been thrown different obstacles this season and to lose a goal that early we could have put our heads down, but the positivity, the fight, the willingness, it was first class.
I wasn’t even sure I was going to take that free-kick. Gayley put the ball down and I said I’ll have a go, and he looked at me with bemusement. I’m just grateful we won today, because we have a bit of relief now.
Liverpool’s six defeats from 12 games is just rank bad form, and there was no cause for optimism here. Lambert took his goal well, and threw himself about up front in a reasonable manner, but there was none of the dynamism of last year. Sterling was invisible-to-poor, presumably tired again. Gerrard was constantly giving the ball away, most commonly by lashing it into the stands from 25 yards. The defence is ridiculously fallible. It’s all bad news.
Final score: Crystal Palace 3-1 Liverpool
90+4 mins: A fourth successive defeat for a horribly limp Liverpool. If they self-destructed on their last visit to Selhurst Park, this time they were properly, genuinely beaten. Which, surely, has got to hurt more, when you think about it.
90+2 mins: Palace still pushing, looking more likely to grab a fourth than Liverpool are to pull a goal back, and Ledley eventually shoots, a bit limply, wide from the edge of the area.
90+1 mins: Into stoppage time we trot, and there’ll be four minutes. It starts with Mignolet nicely claiming a pacey, dipping cross from the right.
88 mins: Liverpool win a corner, which is eventually speared over by Borini and interesting mainly for Hangeland attempting to out-Skrtel Skrtel in an outbreak of pulling and shoving that the referee decides, probably wisely, to simply ignore.
85 mins: Bolasie goes off, Bannan coming on. He’s had a fine game, has Bolasie. Gerrard has not, and his shooting from distance today has been particularly terrible. That free-kick was just the latest of very many wayward shots.
84 mins: No.
83 mins: Liverpool win a free-kick about six inches outside the penalty area, Hangeland getting punished for getting in Sterling’s way. Can Gerrard magic up a miracle for the visitors?
GOAL! Crystal Palace 3-1 Liverpool (Jedinak, 82 mins)
That’s an absolute peach of a free-kick, going over the wall and into the very toppermost corner of the goal! Brilliant stuff!
81 mins: Skrtel, competing against Gayle for a high ball, pulls shirt (inevitably). Gayle was also having a bit of a tug, so to speak, but it’s a Palace free-kick.
79 mins: Liverpool break forward, Sterling gets the ball in the penalty area and down he goes, penalty-hunting. He was touched by Ward – and I’ve seen penalties given for the most innocuous of contact – but it would have been pretty pathetic had it been given. It wasn’t.
GOAL! Crystal Palace 2-1 Liverpool (Ledley, 78)
… and Palace score from the throw-in! It’s flicked on to Bolasie, who beats Lovren with humiliating ease and slides across goal to Ledley, running unmarked from midfield, who his the ball through Mignolet’s legs from seven yards!
77 mins: Glen Johnson wins a free-kick in the very corner of the pitch. Mignolet takes ages over it, and then smacks it straight out of play.
76 mins: Palace make a change, Jason Puncheon comes off, and James McArthur comes on.
74 mins: Another Liverpool substitution, Joe Allen taking his bandages off and Emre Can coming on.
73 mins: Sterling crosses from the right, but only picks out a defender. Surely there’s another goal in this, surely. Surely.
72 mins: At which Liverpool make their first substitution, taking Lallana off and bringing Borini on.
71 mins: A brilliant run from Coutinho, who reaches the edge of the area before he finally prods to Sterling, who spins and passes to Manquillo, who shoots way wide, way way wide.
70 mins: Johnson’s feeble low cross is collected and then inexplicably spilled by Speroni, but he gets away with it.
67 mins: Chamakh’s shot deflects off a defender to Bolasie, whose cross is cleared by a defender to Ledley, who passes to Bolasie, who runs the ball out of play. If anything, the tempo of this match is increasing as it progresses.
64 mins: This has not been the game Liverpool must have anticipated following their 90th-second goal. It continues to be extremely equal, with Palace currently enjoying a moment of supremacy. Jedinak’s shot is blocked by Allen, then Puncheon’s cross just evades Bolasie.
62 mins: From the free-kick, Jedinak’s shot deflects off the wall and out of play.
61 mins: Chamakh spins and sprints towards the penalty area, which Manquillo doesn’t like very much. So he yanks his shirt, conceding a free-kick on the very edge of area, and winning a yellow card.
57 mins: Another off-target 20-yarder from Gerrard.
56 mins: Ooooh! Liverpool have a corner from the left that finds its way to Skrtel, beyond the far post, who shoots left-footed while falling over, and it goes predictably wide. I won’t tell you who just won the F1 world championship, though, in case it inspires Pete Byrne to email more insults.
54 mins: Manquillo slides the ball across goal from the right to Lambert, whose shot is blocked pretty much at source.
51 mins: Bolasie has been Palace’s most dangerous player, wreaking a variety of havoc from his nominal position on the left flank. Puncheon’s been considerably less threatening, on the right, and Chamakh even less threatening in the middle. Having said that, he’s just been hauled down by Skrtel, who is booked.
48 mins: Sterling cuts inside and wins a soft free-kick after Kelly makes gentle contact with his shoulder. Gerrard shoots high and wide from 30 yards.
46 mins: A riproaring first 35 seconds of the second half from Palace, which ends with Gayle being caught offside. “I don’t play professional football for a living but it does seem a tad strange that Martin Skrtel should be so terrified when he is in the vicinity of a football,” notes Paul Griffin. “After all most doctors are not alarmed by the sight of blood, and the majority of bakers do not panic when they see a baguette in the neighbourhood.”
Peeeeeeeeeeeeep!
46 mins: The football is once again happening.
The players are back out, which sadly brings an end to Sky viewers’ pleasure at listening to studio pundit Chris Coleman trying to say Manquillo. This is a guy who used to work in Spain, for pity’s sake.
Here’s the full before-and-after cut-out-and-keep guide to Joe Allen’s injury.
Half-time: Crystal Palace 1-1 Liverpool
And that is the end of half one. A wonderful start from Liverpool, but they haven’t looked enormously superior to Palace in the last half-hour and the home side are deservedly level at the break.
Updated
45+2 mins: Puncheon’s excellent pass finds Bolasie running into the penalty area, but his left-foot shot flies high and wide.
45+1 mins: And we’re into the first of at least two stoppage-time minutes.
45 mins: A decent end to the half from Palace, who force another (fairly easy) save from Mignolet, Ward with the long-range shot.
44 mins: In Formula One news, Nico Rosberg is having a bit of a nightmare and Hamilton has one hand on the title, with 15 laps to go.
42 mins: Chance for Palace! Liverpool have a free-kick, but when it’s cleared they don’t have anyone left back to defend. Bolasie carries the ball foward, one-twos with Gayle and is about to shoot from six yards when Manquillo dives in to block.
40 mins: Palace laboriously work the ball down the right, and then Kelly fouls Allen. Switzerland have won the Davis Cup, other-sports fans.
In the style of the Golden Boot, there should be a Golden Shirt for the most pulls in a season. I reckon Skrtel is a shoo-in @Simon_Burnton
— Gary Naylor (@garynaylor999) November 23, 2014
He’d be a shoo-in this and every season. Skrtel’s shirt-pulling skills are unparalleled in human history.
Updated
38 mins: Gerrard, found in a shooting position of his own 20 yards out, shows Allen how it’s done, kind of, by powering a thunderdrive goalwards, but about 10 yards high.
37 mins: A promising Liverpool attack ends with Allen in a shooting position, 20 yards out. He doesn’t much fancy his chances so passes wide to Sterling, who feints and shimmies for a while before losing the ball.
35 mins: Damien Delaney has hurt himself in having nothing whatsoever to do with that Lambert chance, and as a result he’s gone off, and Brede Hangeland has come on.
34 mins: Chance for Liverpool! Allen scurries down the left, turns back spins and centres for Lambert, just beyond the far post. He heads wide.
33 mins: Coutinho plays the ball through to Lallana, who is given offside (wrongly). That linesman seems to have forgotten his contact lenses today. On the plus side, Lallana failed to control the ball, so his offsideness or otherwise didn’t really matter.
30 mins: Oooof! Bolasie’s got his shooting boots on today, and he buys a little space on the left before biffing the ball right-footed across goal, where Mignolet palms it away for a corner.
27 mins: Gerrard just switched play neatly on the half-way line. It’s not a lot, but it’s probably the best moment of the last 10 minutes. A few seconds later Liverpool win a free-kick, which Gerrard spears into the mixer and finds Lambert, who might have scored but headed over instead.
24 mins: A bit of a scrappy spell here, with possession – and free-kicks – being conceded a little too easily by both sides.
21 mins: Lambert is played through, only to be given offside (wrongly), and then a few moments later Gayle is played through, only to be given offside (rightly).
19 mins: Allen, incidentally, has been forced into a second shirt-change, with his head wound still seeping gently.
GOAL! Crystal Palace 1-1 Liverpool (Gayle, 17 mins)
Bolasie cuts from left to right and is found mid-burst, takes a couple of touches and then slams a low shot that flies back across goal and into the meat of the post, and thence back into the path of the onrushing Gayle, who has an empty goal to tap into.
15 mins: Mignolet takes a goal kick. He likes taking goal kicks, so takes his time over it. Approximately an entire minute, or 1.11% of the match, was just spent watching Mignolet take a single goal kick.
13 mins: Decent closing-down in midfield from Palace, which forces Liverpool, after considerable left-right passing, to go back to their goalkeeper, who hoofs upfield.
11 mins: Kelly, trying to atone for his second-minute nap, cuts inside from the right and lashes a left-footed shot way wide and also very high.
9 mins: Joe Allen is bleeding from a head wound, and is having said bonce emphatically wrapped in bandage. He seems unflustered by all this.
6 mins: You can actually hear the pitch squidge sometimes. Bolasie squidges down the left, and wins his side a corner, which is cleared, and when Puncheon eventually sends the ball back into the box it’s a bit useless and Bolasie steamrollers Gerrard in an attempt to win it, conceding a free-kick.
4 mins: Excellent pass, nice run, good control. Liverpool haven’t seen the best of Lambert this season, or even the second best of Lambert, or the quite good of Lambert, but that was very nicely created and taken.
GOAL! Crystal Palace 0-1 Liverpool (Lambert, 2 mins)
Whoosh! Liverpool streak into the lead, Lallana popping a pass past Martin Kelly to the feet of Lambert, who controls excellently, and finishes casually.
Peeeeeeeeeeeep!
1 min: We’re off! Liverpool, clad all in yellow, do the honours.
They’re now out of the tunnel, they’ve shaken hands and they’re doing those last-minute muscle-stretches while Sky sell some adverts.
The players are in the tunnel. Deep breath now.
Arty rainfall photograph of the day
Brendan Rodgers speaks!
The international break came at a good time, to regroup again. Today is vitally important to us. For Rickie Lambert, it’s been difficult for him because he’s come in when we haven’t been scoring goals, wanting to get more opportunities, but he’s worked tirelessly. He was understanding of the role he had coming in, to be a striker who’d be played in certain games and could come on and affect games. But he’s earned his right to play. He’s a good guy who’s worked very hard at his game, and he’s the kind of striker that needs a run of games to get goals. We haven’t scored anywhere near the goals we’d like. Rickie’s been working hard in training, doing everything he can, and this is his opportunity.
People looked at that game as the game that cost us the league, but I felt it was the game before. Certainly it ended here that night, but I don’t think it dictated where the league went.
They’re difficult to beat, they’ve got honest players, they showed great resilience last year and they’ve obviously got quality. They’ll play on the counter-attack mostly, they’re defensively strong. It’s going to be a difficult game but we need to have confidence in our own way of playing.
It is damp in London today, very damp indeed. Here’s some evidence:
The Guardian’s Dominic Fifield is at Selhurst Park this afternoon:
First league start for #cpfc's Dwight Gayle since mid-September. Wonder how knackered Yannick Bolasie will be after international duty...
— Dominic Fifield (@domfifield) November 23, 2014
In other sports news, Lewis Hamilton has started the season’s final grand prix brilliantly, surging from second on the grid to make it to the first corner with a 15-yard lead.
“For those who like their referees accompanied by their city of origin, Mr Moss is from REDACTED,” notes Ian Copestake. “You’re welcome.” Ian actually wrote where he’s really from, but it’s Guardian style not to print this, to ensure our notoriously vicious readers don’t track them down and make their lives hell.
Here’s an easy-to-read text version of the teams, with substitutes and everything:
Crystal Palace: Speroni, Kelly, Dann, Delaney, Ward, Bolasie, Jedinak, Ledley, Puncheon, Chamakh, Gayle. Subs: Hangeland, Campbell, Zaha, Hennessey, Johnson, McArthur, Bannan.
Liverpool: Mignolet, Manquillo, Lovren, Skrtel, Johnson, Allen, Gerrard, Coutinho, Sterling, Lambert, Lallana. Subs: Brad Jones, Toure, Moreno, Lucas, Can, Borini, Markovic.
Referee: Jon Moss.
A couple of players have been talking to Sky, and this is what they said. Firstly, Scott Dann:
I don’t think it’s bad to talk of the 3-3. It makes it more exciting for people watching the game. Obviously we’d rather there’d be not so many goals in the game but hopefully it can be as exciting as the first one. Every time you play against Liverpool you know it’s going to be a really tough game. Where we are in the league, we need to put points on the board and that needs to start today. A couple of the results, teams around us won yesterday and we need to put points on the board.
And then Liverpool’s Joe Allen:
We’re disappointed with the way it ended here last year, but it’s a different season. It’s completely out of our minds. We had the summer to reflect on it, it was disappointing, but Palace are under different management, things have changed and we’re focused on doing the job a bit better this time. The rain? It’s not something we’ve paid too much attention to. I don’t think it’ll have too much impact on the game.
Here are today’s teams, as revealed to Twitter by the two clubs. Headlines: Gayle starts for Palace; Rickie Lambert gets the nod for Liverpool with Mario Balotelli out with a groin injury. Jordan Henderson is unwell.
Today's Palace line-up: pic.twitter.com/eEwdwYJ4kZ
— Crystal Palace FC (@CPFC) November 23, 2014
Confirmed: #LFC’s starting XI and substitutes v Crystal Palace pic.twitter.com/nlm1BGpMbT
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) November 23, 2014
In other words, when shown this:
Do Steven Gerrard and co see this?
Updated
Hello world!
So it’s back to Selhurst Park for Liverpool, forced to revisit the scene of the ludicrous late larceny that ended their title chase last season. It calls to mind that scene in Ransom where the released hostage-child comes (nearly) face to face with his kidnapper and those unhealed psychological scars are brutally and bladder-emptyingly ripped open. Is this Liverpool team made of sterner stuff? Have they got close enough to recovering from that 3-3 draw to have developed scars in the first place? Is their poor form this season down as much to Dwight Gayle’s late brace in May as Luis Suárez’s subsequent departure?
Simon will be here shortly. Meanwhile, read Paul Wilson’s interview with Liverpool midfielder Emre Can, about making his mark in the Premier League:
Liverpool are at Crystal Palace on Sunday and, though Emre Can joined the club only in the summer, he has no difficulty in remembering the significance of events at Selhurst Park last season. Leading 3-0 with just over 10 minutes to play, Liverpool were pegged back late in the game through trying to improve their goal difference, a 3-3 draw effectively ending their title challenge.
“I watched the game in Germany,” the 20-year-old midfielder says. “I think the first contact between Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen had been made, so naturally I took an interest in how they finished the season. At that stage I wasn’t sure I would become a Liverpool player but I liked the way they played. I thought they were very unlucky at Palace.”
The interpreter Can is using breaks out laughing at this point, because the intensifier his client actually used was considerably earthier than the word “very”, and the player starts to laugh too. He knows a few words of English, enough to get by, and the interpreter can confirm he knows how to express himself in both English and German. He did not have to come to England, he was doing well enough at Leverkusen to raise the possibility of Bayern Munich buying him back but, when Brendan Rodgers got in touch, he realised he wanted to accept the challenge.
