A stunning Luis Diaz strike rescued a point for 10-man Liverpool as they drew 1-1 against Crystal Palace in their opening Anfield match of the Premier League season on Monday night.
Wilfried Zaha put Crystal Palace in front on 32 minutes, latching on to an Eberechi Eze pass on the counter-attack before firing past Alisson.
jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool were reduced to 10 men in the 57th minute when Darwin Nunez was sent off on his full debut for violent conduct following an altercation with Joachim Andersen.
But Luis Diaz swept in superbly from the edge of the area four minutes later to level and although Zaha struck a post late on, neither side could find a late winner.
Back-to-back draws make this Jurgen Klopp’s worst start to a Premier League season after two matches while Mohamed Salah has still remarkably yet to score in Matchweek 2 since joining Liverpool.
The Reds sit 12th on two points, one more than Palace in 16th.
After the match Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp said ,” I told the boys after the game I’m proud, and I am – that’s what I feel. A lot of things happened during the week and then the game started like it started, I loved it, that was the game we wanted to play. Of course we wanted to finish the situations off but I think we did extremely well and then in the box with a lot of legs and bodies they blocked, I’m not sure, seven or eight shots in the first half already. That’s a special number so we were obviously on the right path and if we carry on like this it was a matter of time.”
But unfortunately then they scored the 1-0, which I think was the first counter-attack? I think so. Everything was in place for that moment, so we had good protection actually; we had Fab and Trent around Eze, we had two-v-one in the last line as well. Unfortunately, Eze can free him there and then the space is pretty big, with the speed of Zaha and a good finish. In that moment they showed actually how good they are and how difficult it is to play against them, because these moments always can happen and it didn’t happen too often.
At half-time, positive, I told the boys we should go back to the way we started the game, that would be ideal; we need offers, we need the speed, we need the direction, these were the moments where Palace struggled, we caused them problems. We need to pick up as well second balls in these moments and go from there. I thought the start was positive again and then the red card happened. But obviously the best possible reaction from Lucho then – worldie, wonderful goal. And from that moment on it was a special game. That was us at home with an incredible atmosphere. Unfortunately, without a goal, which is not easy.
But I think the way we played – and you all watched a lot of football games with 10v11 and it’s not common that you put a team as much under pressure as we did. But we did and that was good. So, now we have a point more than before the game. I can imagine what kind of articles and headlines and commentaries that leads [to] but that’s life. So, we will go from here.”
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Premier League Liverpool Crystal Palace Jurgen Klopp Football Sports Kolkata