Three things we learned from Liverpool

Alan Pardew will face renewed calls for his dismissal

As sure as night follows day, tonight’s loss will follow another hundred pages on the online message boards and a two-word hashtag on Twitter that both amount to the same sentiment: Alan Pardew must go. The loss is fresh & everyone is rightly frustrated, especially over our first half performance but we really have to put this loss into context.

I don’t think anybody honestly expected us to beat Liverpool – if they don’t win the league this season it will not be for a lack of attacking talent or commitment, it will be a result of defensive lapses, key injuries or potentially a superior Manchester City side. What I’m saying is, they’ll be there or thereabouts come May and Palace won’t be and as a result Pardew’s future will not be decided on a result against Liverpool. Fail to pick up at least 6 points from Burnley, Hull and Swansea and things could be very different in a months’ time…

As expected, Liverpool struggle defensively

In my preview to this game I focused on Liverpool’s defensive troubles this season and identified their weakness dealing with aerial balls as something we could look to exploit. Even though we lost, Saturday evening proved that to be the case.

The first goal came from a simple individual mistake from Lovren. His attempted clearance was lackadaisical and symptomatic of the kind of lapses in concentration which have been costing Liverpool and against a better side that weakness could have been further highlighted. A mistake like that doesn’t boil down to a simple lack of ability but Liverpool’s dominance had just caused him to switch off. Lovren switched off, threw a lazy leg at it and Palace find themselves back in a game they have no right to be in.

Palace’s second wasn’t much better from Liverpool’s point of view. Zaha did well and McArthur even better, but it wasn’t a great ball in and should have been dealt with if Liverpool hadn’t been caught on their heels. McArthur did brilliantly to tuck it away once he’d got into that position – it was a great header – but Klopp will have been unimpressed by his side’s defending in that first half and rightly so. The first allowed us to grow into a game which, frankly, we were mere passengers in and the second provided us with yet more encouragement. The goals changed Palace’s attitude and confidence and without them Liverpool could have maintained their hold and turned three into five or six.

Palace struggled even more…

If Klopp would have been unimpressed by his side’s defending, then Alan Pardew should have been fuming at half time. Liverpool are rightly given widespread credit for their attacking play, their movement both on and off the ball is exquisite at times and in Coutinho they have a magician that is capable of both unlocking defences and individually creating a moment of magic.

When you play a team with that kind of quality you have to defend astutely in every other department and hope that, on the day, they don’t cause you too many problems. Conceding two goals from set pieces is, therefore, perhaps even more unbelievable than in any other game this season. More ridiculously it wasn’t even lax marking from our midfielders or strikers that let Matip and Lovren run free and get on the end of corners, it was Tomkins and Dann who lost their men.

I shouldn’t be surprised really, this season in particular we have been routinely poor at defending set-pieces and have lost a decent handful of points from these kind of lapses alone, points which we can’t afford to keep losing. I’m not suggesting for a moment that this was the sole reason for our loss tonight, but at 2-2 you’re in a game and at 4-2 you’re just not.

What makes it more frustrating I suppose is that under Pulis we were one of the best in those situations, at both ends of the pitch but under Pardew our marking and concentration levels in the very same situations has fallen off a cliff. Pardew must put that right or fear the further wrath of the supporters if we continue to lose points as a result of our inability to properly mark at set-pieces..

Or our inability to even defend.