A brace from Christian Benteke helped Crystal Palace to a 2-1 victory against Liverpool in their Premier League encounter on Sunday afternoon at Anfield, writes MARSHALL GOUTS.
Jurgen Klopp named an unchanged side from their 1-0 victory against West Brom 1-0 in their previous league encounter, whilst Sam Allardyce made one change from his team that played to a 2-2 stalemate with Leicester City, with defender James Tomkins replacing Mamadou Sakho.
The home side got off to the brighter start and dominated possession proceedings from the offset, whilst Palace looked to utilise the aerial-threat of lone striker, Christian Benteke.
The Belgian forward came agonisingly close to putting his side in the lead when he out-muscled Lucas Leiva, before jinxing his way into the area, but his subsequent shot went inches wide of the post.
Coutinho put Liverpool ahead in the 24th minute, when his excellent free-kick evaded the attention of Wayne Hennessey and flew into the top corner.
Georginio Wijnaldum did well to get into some space down the byline, before squaring the ball to Emre Can, but the midfielder completely miscued his effort.
Benteke levelled the scoring for Palace in the 41st minute, after a swift counter-attacking move by the visitors saw Yohan Cabaye outpace Dejan Lovren, before picking out the unmarked Benteke, who made no mistake from within the area.
The two sides went into the half-time break deadlocked at 1-1.
Liverpool emerged with more of attacking intent in the second-half, and almost restored the lead in the 52nd minute when Coutinho took matters into his own hands to beat three players, but his effort was deflected away for a corner.
Roberto Firmino almost got on to the end of Lucas Leiva’s defence-splitting pass, but the onrushing Hennessey did well to stop the forward in his tracks.
Benteke gave Palace the lead for the first time in the encounter, when he profited from some poor defending to head home from a corner in the 74th minute.
Content with their one-goal lead, Palace defended deep in their half and soaked up the Liverpool attack, which failed to threaten Hennessey again, as Palace ran out 2-1 victors to hand Sam Allardyce his first victory at Anfield in 14 outings.
Photo: EPA/Peter Powell
