Defending Champions Liverpool guaranteed that they will be No 1 at Christmas with A clinical 7-0 victory over Crystal Palace on Saturday evening at Selhurst Park, London.
Brazilian Roberto Firmino and substitute Mohamed Salah scored twice, while 7 different Liverpool players picks up assists on a historic night. Liverpool are six points clear of Tottenham Hotspur at the top of the table, who host Leicester City tomorrow and Palace stay 12th, with 18 points.
Takumi Minamino showed good feet before finding the bottom corner after three minutes for his first Premier League goal. Palace responded but could not get the goal they deserved and Sadio Mane’s sharp turn and finish doubled Liverpool’s advantage on 35 minutes.
The champions took full control in the 44th minute, with Roberto Firmino controlling Andy Robertson’s pass before poking the ball in. Jordan Henderson curled in a fourth after the interval before Firmino dinked the ball over Vicente Guaita for his second.
Substitute Mohamed Salah scored a quick-fire brace in the 81st minute and 84th minute, including a fantastic second, as Liverpool recorded their biggest Premier League away win.
Match Stats :
| Crystal Palace | Liverpool | |
|---|---|---|
| 34.6 | Possession % | 65.4 |
| 3 | Shots on target | 8 |
| 5 | Shots | 14 |
| 527 | Touches | 886 |
| 374 | Passes | 724 |
| 10 | Tackles | 16 |
| 8 | Clearances | 13 |
| 5 | Corners | 4 |
| 7 | Offsides | 0 |
| 1 | Yellow cards | 0 |
| 5 | Fouls conceded | 11 |
What Next
- Crystal Palace will play at Aston Villa on 27th December.
- Liverpool will host West Brom on 26th December at Anfield.
Post-Match reactions:
Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool Manager :
“Everything is pleasing; everything is good about this game. Overcoming the difficult problems in the first half with [their] counter-attacks, fighting really hard to avoid a goal there and then on the other side, really top football, top finishing. Keeping the ball in the right way, using the positioning, filling the match plan with life. The boys did really well, it was really difficult to play against us today, I would say. And then today they obviously all wore their finishing boots it looked like and when you have that it is really tricky. That’s the reason for the result. That didn’t happen for us before and unfortunately it will not happen a lot, but it’s a funny season – we lost 7-2 and now we won 7-0, so at least we could cancel out a little bit the goal difference.”
Roy Hodgson, Crystal Palace Manager :
“It’s got to be something we learn from,” he said in his post-match interview. “We know that Liverpool are a good team. They do certain things in their play that I think are crucial in the way they dominate and the way they win games and we need to take some lessons from that.
“The only thing I can is that I don’t think the players ever gave up. We weren’t being bombarded with shots at goal or chances, but when the chances came their way they were good-chances and they took them and were very clinical.”
“There were times when we tried to take the game and the match to them as best we could and there were periods in the game that we did. But to go a goal down so early definitely doesn’t help things.
“They never stopped trying but unfortunately they were playing against a confident team.”
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://www.bleachersnews.com/premier-league-crystal-palace-0-7-liverpool/&media=https://www.bleachersnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Liverpool-beat-Crystal-Palace.jpg&description="Everything is pleasing; everything is good about this game. Overcoming the difficult problems in the first half with [their] counter-attacks, fighting really hard to avoid a goal there and then on the other side, really top football, top finishing.){kind=link}