Liverpool’s hard-fought, gritty 2-0 win at Crystal Palace was a small example as to why they have paid big money on players in the last two transfer windows.
It was not a performance which would fill any of the front players with imperious pride, however, this was more of a collective show with each piece of the puzzle contributing to the win.
We all know how Palace set up. They aim too disrupt the rhythm of the opposition by being compact in defence and play on the counter-attack with long ball towards a target man. They also rely on set-pieces of each type to get a goal.
Against Liverpool, Roy Hodgson’s men did what was expected of them. They operated in a tightly bound 4-4-2 system, with narrow midfield and defence, and a front-two of different attributes.
On those terms, the key for Jurgen Klopp’s men was to be patient in possession and win second balls to tire the defence down. Even if Palace cleared it long towards Christian Benteke, the defence had to make sure that the Belgian didn’t win a flick-on for his partner Wilfried Zaha.
This is where the pure domination and authority of Virgil van Dijk came to the fore. The Dutchman not only won aerial duels for the balls that were on his side, he took his partner Joe Gomez’s position at times to win headers and repel the primary threat of the opposition. So, the 27-year-old was basically playing both centre-back roles when the ball was in the air.
It was brilliant in a way, because Benteke realised that he has more of a chance winning battles versus Gomez, but van Dijk made sure the striker didn’t get an easy game in that respect.
The Dutch defender won nine aerial duels, had a tackle rate of 100% and made eight clearances. In addition, his pass accuracy of 92.4% epitomises his all-around quality as a defender. (Stats – Squawka)
He won two very important headers from Palace set-pieces right at the end of the game, the second of which turned into a good pass for Mohamed Salah, who assisted Sadio Mane for Liverpool’s clinching goal.
Twitter: RT @stehoare: When you see a long ball come into the Liverpool box, then realise that we now have Alisson and VVD playing for us. https://… (@AlexJDickinson)
Moving on, the Reds did a very pivotal business this summer, by recruiting a new goalkeeper, a position where the club were short-handed after Loris Karius’ mishaps in Kiev. Klopp has always been adamant to buy his number one targets in the market, and he got that in the shape of Brazil’s number one Alisson Becker.
The big-money shot-stopper also showed his worth at Selhurst Park, a place where many opposition goalkeepers have a history of being tested in a hostile atmosphere. Alisson was calm, confident and had an air of command in whatever he did. He made two good saves, the first of which was from a well-struck free-kick.
The other stand out thing about the Brazilian was his distribution from the back. He completed 21 of his 23 attempted passes, with 10 of them being more than 30 metres. He was acting like an “attack-starter” from pressure situations and this will bode well for the future as Liverpool are at their most lethal when counter-attacking on the opposition.
Verdict
It is no disrespect to any player, but the feeling around this game was that if Klopp would not have bought van Dijk and Alisson, then this was the game the Reds could have lost. That in itself is enough to prove that spending over £130m was justifiable on two players who can potentially turn Liverpool into title contenders.
