Benteke’s on target to haunt Klopp
JURGEN KLOPP insisted he is well- versed in dealing with disappointment, saying he had got up from worse knocks than this before.
Yet had he been asked to sketch out his nightmare scenario for yesterday’s visit of Crystal Palace, it is hard to imagine it looking different to the reality of this defeat.
Victory for Palace was bad enough, a withering punch to Liverpool’s Champions League hopes for all that they remained in third place.
But to see Christian Benteke get the goals that sunk them on his Anfi eld return, after Klopp let him go for a £ 5million loss last summer, just about put the tin hat on it.
They still lead Manchester City and Manchester United, who meet on Thursday, but they could miss out on a top- four fi nish having played two more games.
“I know everybody will be saying, ‘ Champions League slips through our fi ngers again’,” he said. “But only if you let it slip. That’s all we can say about this. Our job is to squeeze everything out of this season that we can now.”
It was predictable that Benteke would be the one to throw a spanner into the Anfi eld works given how his £ 32.5m move to Liverpool in 2015 failed to catch fi re.
Klopp inherited the striker when he took over later that year and never found a way of using him in his system – his 29 appearances yielding only nine goals .
Yet he has found a more appreciative audience in London and a boss in Sam Allardyce prepared to make him the focal point.
In contrast to his previous time here, both yesterday’s goals were the product of arriving at the right place at the right time.
Klopp had warned of the threat from Palace’s front line , going as far as to label them as one of the best in the league. But if the fi rst goal
LIVERPOOL CRYSTAL PALACE
was the product of a brutally swift counter- attack – Benteke getting on the end of Yohan Cabaye’s cross – the second from a set- piece was a familiar failing of his own men.
A poor corner from Andros Townsend, which passed Liverpool’s front post markers on a low trajectory was met by Benteke, who headed in unchallenged from six yards.
It could be argued it was against the run of play after Liverpool had bossed the early part of the second half.
And Philippe Coutinho, who had put Liverpool into the lead with a free- kick, caused palpitations in the Palace rearguard whenever he had the ball. Yet Palace’s belief grew as the game went on.
Allardyce was not backward in pointing out Liverpool’s weaknesses or describing exactly how he had set up his Palace side to exploit them. “Liverpool at home play a superb attacking style which means both full- backs go up the pitch,” he said. “It leaves Joel Matip and Dejan Lovren very exposed and if you get the right runners in behind they are two big men who don’t like turning. The runs of Cabaye did that for us.
“Everybody knows Liverpool have conceded six off corners, now it’s seven.”
Palace have now beaten Chelsea and Liverpool away and Arsenal at home in their last fi ve games – form that has given them 38 points and 12th place and will prove enough to see them survive.
Liverpool will now wait anxiously to see how long their own Champions League hopes survive.
LIVERPOOL ( 4- 3- 3): Booked: NEXT UP: CRYSTAL PALACE ( 4- 5- 1): Goal: Booked: Goals: