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Key events
9 min: Arne Slot is prowling his technical area in a slightly agitated manner. His supercool of last season gone for now. Five defeats in six will do that to a man.
7 min: Liverpool are dominating possession during these early exchanges. Ngumoha looks lively down the left. He cuts in from the left and shapes to shoot but can’t get an effort on goal. Kerkez picks up possession on the left and crosses deep for Morrison, who heads harmlessly wide right from six yards. The cross was a little bit too high for him to realistically get anything on target.
5 min: Hughes goes long down the middle. Woodman, making his first Liverpool appearance against the club he supported as a kid, races out of his box to blooter clear.
4 min: Ramsay exchanges passes with Endo down the right and wins the first corner of the game. Mac Allister swings it in, and it’s not very good. Benitez in the Palace goal claims.
3 min: Ngumoha dribbles in from the left and one-twos with Chiesa, before running into the clumsily-positioned referee. Liverpool and their supporters are a bit miffed about that, given things had otherwise opened up for them.
2 min: Hughes gets back up and prepares to continue. No hard feelings. We go again.
20 secs: Chiesa barges enthusiastically into Hughes, who stays down holding his head. Play stops almost as soon as it starts.
Palace get the ball rolling. They’re kicking towards the Kop in this first half.
The teams are out at Anfield. Liverpool in red, Crystal Palace in third-choice white. Anticipation rumbles in the stands, albeit laced with a wee bit of anxiety, a by-product of recent results plus not knowing what this cobbled-together Liverpool side will do. Niall Mullen has half an idea, and it’s not wholly optimistic: “It looks like Liverpool are forfeiting. It’s a bold strategy, let’s see if it pays off for them.” We’ll be off in a couple of minutes.
Oliver Glasner by contrast cuts a more relaxed figure as he talks to Sky. “We always start in every single competition to win it … it is not to be arrogant, it makes no sense for me saying ‘OK we want to win three rounds and then lose in the quarter-final’ … playing here in an away game against the Premier League title-holders is maybe the most difficult game you can play … we will give it our best to qualify for the quarter-final and we will see.”
Arne Slot explains his team selection to Sky Sports by coming at the subject from a few different angles at the same time. “People who follow this club know we use this competition for younger players … we want to create a pathway for them … to play in front of 60,000 people … in front of our own fans … that’s one reason … the other is that we only have four or five injuries but if I have to play again the same players … there are multiple reasons why we have lost so many games … no excuses to lose so many but it hasn’t been helpful that almost every time we have only two days in between … and after we have had to play away … and then again an away game … so we keep playing the same players … like for example I tried with Alexander Isak, players who missed out on pre-season … it is a big risk of another injury … and we only have at this moment in time 15, 16 senior players available.”
It’s fair to say Liverpool have filed an experimental teamsheet, with the vast bulk of the regulars given the night off. Milos Kerkez, desperate to play himself into some form, is the only player to retain his starting spot after the 3-2 defeat at Brentford last weekend. Third-choice goalkeeper Freddie Woodman and 18-year-old Northern Ireland winger Kieran Morrison make their club debuts, while the starting XI also includes 17-year-old winger Rio Ngumoha and 18-year-old midfielder Trey Nyoni. Nobody on their bench is over 21; Kaide Gordon is the most experienced sub with nine senior appearances on his resumé.
Crystal Palace by contrast retain six players from the team sent out for the 1-0 defeat at Arsenal on Sunday. Marc Guéhi, Maxence Lacroix, Daniel Muñoz, Ismaïla Sarr, Yéremy Pino and Daichi Kamada all hold onto their shirts. Sarr has five goals against Liverpool in eight appearances for Palace and Watford, while one of the players stepping into the team tonight, Eddie Nketiah, scored the winner when the teams met at Selhurst last month.
The teams
Liverpool: Woodman, Ramsay, Gomez, Robertson, Kerkez, Endo, Nyoni, Mac Allister, Morrison, Ngumoha, Chiesa.
Subs: Pecsi, Gordon, Pilling, Kone-Doherty, Pinnington, Figueroa, Nallo, Lucky, Laffey.
Crystal Palace: Benitez, Canvot, Lacroix, Guehi, Munoz, Hughes, Kamada, Sosa, Sarr, Pino, Nketiah.
Subs: Henderson, Mitchell, Lerma, Uche, Mateta, Clyne, Esse, Devenny, Cardines.
Referee: Craig Pawson (South Yorkshire).
Preamble
Liverpool have historically found Crystal Palace difficult opponents. Not exactly always – they’re 36-16 up on wins, and beat Palace 7-0 on their own turf five years ago – but when the Eagles perform a hit on the Reds, they really hit, and hit hard. The 1990 FA Cup semi-final. Crystanbul. This season’s Charity Community Shield. The game at Selhurst last month that triggered this astonishing collapse of Arne Slot’s champion side, Liverpool’s first loss in a sequence of five in six.
Now let’s fold another couple of sequences into the mix. Of the last eight meetings between the clubs, Palace have won three (we’re counting the Community Shield as a win), Liverpool just two. What’s even more worrying for the Reds are the recent results at Anfield: Palace have won one and drawn two of the last three. The Eagles have a strong upper hand over tonight’s hosts at the moment.
Having said all that, Palace are in a bit of a rut of their own. They’ve lost three of their last four matches in all competitions, failing to win domestically since that aforementioned capitulation-triggering visit of Liverpool to Selhurst. So here are a couple of teams who could do with a bolt of season-reviving energy. That alone should give us a fair chance of some top-grade fun tonight, though any long-term significance may depend on what teams Slot and Oliver Glasner decide to put out; they’re unlikely to be Premier League first XIs. But we’ll find out about that soon enough. Kick-off is at 7.45pm GMT. It’s on!
