Liverpool spent most of October flying. Working through the month, the Reds swept past LASK, Brentford, Villarreal, and Brighton with ease before Andoni Iraola sent out a youth-heavy lineup that still managed to get the result against an on-paper stronger Chelsea side in the League Cup.
Then came the blow of Arsenal. Liverpool were the better side but lost due to clear and obvious refereeing failures. Or maybe Liverpool were the better side right up until the point where they had to break down Mikel
Arteta’s £1B cynical anti-football machine and that’s the reason they lost.
Either way, it was a setback and reality check, but not a major one. More concerning was when they followed it with an underwhelming performance against Fenerbahce mid-week. Crystal Palace, though, gave them a chance to get back on track on Sunday. And in the end, this time they took it.
“It was a difficult game,” midfielder Alexis Mac Allister said after the match. “We know that when we come to Crystal Palace it’s always going to be a difficult game. They can play very good football but I think we defended the box quite well, especially our centre-backs were really, really good.
“But it was difficult. Sometimes we tried to press but it was not always perfect and they could escape from it and create chances, so we are glad with the result but we know this is far from perfect and that we we have to keep improving—we have to keep improving because this is far from perfect.”
Not perfect, but promising. Not perfect, but at least showing the kind of fight the team were so lacking in last season—and the kind of fight that one might have worried hadn’t fully been recovered when they followed up last weekend’s Arsenal disappointment by looking flat against Fenerbahce.
As a result, the timing of the November international break feels a little unfortunate as it means they won’t get a quick mid-week opportunity to build on that improvement. Still, it’s promising to see, and especially from a player like Mac Allister who had such a difficult time of it last season.
“I scored twice in the Champions League and another competition but it’s great to score,” he added of getting his first league goal in the win at Palace. “It’s nice to score and then I think we played a good game. Sometimes we can control a little better but in all I think it was a good performance.”
