Player ratings as Reds suffer major title blow

Liverpool suffered a huge blow to their Premier League title hopes as they were beaten 1-0 at Anfield by Crystal Palace.

The Reds missed the chance to return to top spot as Eberechi Eze’s early goal handed the visitors a hard-fought but deserved victory.

Jurgen Klopp’s side now need slip-ups from both Arsenal and Manchester City to have any chance of coming out on top in the title race.

How the game unfolded

The team news featured a significant boost to Liverpool in the form of fit-again first-choice goalkeeper Alisson Becker starting.

But the return of a world-class goalkeeper means little when free shots in the 18-yard box are given up easily and that’s exactly what happened when Tyrick Mitchell’s pull-back found Eze for a simple finish at the Kop end with 14 minutes gone.

That was the 21st time this season the Reds had fallen behind in a game and a strong response might have been expected from a side that has consistently produced them.

Instead, Andy Robertson was required to clear a dinked Jean-Philippe Mateta effort off the line after a Virgil van Dijk slip had put him in one-on-one.

Liverpool did eventually produce a response as Wataru Endo hit the bar from close range following a scramble at a corner, while Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah both forced sharp saves from Dean Henderson.

However, the hosts almost conceded again when Mateta headed an Eberechi Eze cross just over before the whistle sounded on a 1-0 half-time deficit.

At the break, Klopp recognised a poor Endo performance in replacing the midfielder with Dominik Szoboszlai and he was forced into another change shortly after the restart when a Conor Bradley injury meant Trent Alexander-Arnold coming on.

And Liverpool might have thought their luck was about to change when the ball dropped to Darwin Nunez inside the box following an aerial challenge, only for the Uruguayan to somehow hit Henderson with his finish.

His replacement, Diogo Jota, then missed a similar chance in smashing the ball into Nathaniel Clyne from close range as Klopp’s substitutions failed to change things.

Palace soon missed a huge chance of their own as Mateta failed to beat Alisson from inside the six-yard box after a knockdown from Joachim Andersen had seemingly set him up to wrap up the points.

Liverpool continued to make substitutions in the search of some impetus and continued to probe Palace, but when Curtis Jones put a one-on-one wide the writing appeared to be on the wall.

And so it proved as Palace held out for their first…