Liverpool reminded what they could have won as difficult weekend takes another bad turn | OneFootball

It’s been a difficult weekend in a difficult season for Liverpool, who could probably therefore have done without Marc Guehi adding to their woes by popping up on Sunday to score a winner for the side he would have cheerfully left for the Reds back in the summer.

Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? Guehi instead remained part of a Crystal Palace side that, 15 games into the season, sits in the top four while Liverpool languish down in ninth.

Now it’s only fair to also at this stage point out that in fact only three points separate the two, such is the Premier League’s current mid-table concertina effect. In points terms, fourth-placed Palace are just as close to Manchester United in 12th as they are Aston Villa in third.

It’s a very funny league table, still, with Villa as yet the only team that have managed to get out of a huge mid-table muddle that appears to award league positions from fourth down to 14th week by week on a random rota basis.

Everton were fifth yesterday! It’s all good clean fun, and Fulham are trying to get themselves involved in that particular whimsy instead of the much less fun relegation battle. Alas, it’s still not to be. A point here that they came very close to getting from a decent performance would have made for a compelling argument that they were now at the back of the peloton rather than merely the least decrepit of the assorted stragglers off the back.

The win that looked to be theirs for the taking when Emile Smith Rowe thought he’d put them 2-1 up definitely would have done it. For now, though, they’re back where they were, neither nowt nor summat, two points behind the last of the mid-tablers Brentford and two points ahead of the best of the other relegation battlers Leeds and Forest.

This was a performance that, like the wild midweek defeat to Man City, had much about it to suggest they are perfectly capable of returning to the mid-table realm while not actually, in the end, doing anything tangible about it.

In large part because of Guehi, who popped up to score the late winner. But before that he had once again proved a crucial part of a Palace defence that is just tremendously hard to breach.

Leaders Arsenal have conceded only nine goals thus far. The other 18 teams have conceded at least 15 and most a lot more – some even double that. In the middle of those two groups – one containing only the best team in the country, the other containing literally everyone else – sit Palace. They’ve conceded only 12 goals all season, and today conceded their first from open play in seven games.

Fittingly it took an absolute world-class nonsense of a goal to leave them undone as well, with Harry Wilson playing a sublime one-two with Raul Jimenez before curling into the corner with the outside of his boot. It was his fourth Premier League goal of the season, and his second outlandish one of recent weeks, albeit this time rather less goalkeeper-assisted than he was at Tottenham.

There was no assistance from the Palace defence because quite simply the Palace defence doesn’t really do helping the opposition. They are spectacularly well drilled, organised beyond belief, and it takes outstanding levels to breach them.

It really is worth pausing to compare all that to the current state of the defence Guehi wanted to become a part of as the transfer window clock ticked down. Sure, he’s a brilliant defender and Liverpool’s defence would not look as it currently does were he there. Nor, just as obviously, would Palace’s without him. We’re really not sure he alone could redress the balance entirely, though, given that Liverpool’s goals against column is currently double that of Guehi’s current team.

Wilson’s was not the only wonderful goal of the day either. It was an equaliser that Fulham needed because they themselves had been largely blameless pulled open by brilliance. This time from Adam Wharton, who played two defence-splitting passes within the same move, even if we have to be extremely generous with our benefit of the doubt to accept the second of the two was actually meant for Eddie Nketiah, who nevertheless brought it under control with a wonderful first touch before rifling into the bottom corner.

Palace are now in rarefied air the likes of which they have rarely seen, and must also now maintain that position through a fixture list who’s congested appearance is also a novelty.

It is December 7 today; by January 7 they will have played another nine games across three competitions. The longest ‘break’ between games they have during this run is five days between the League Cup quarter-final against Arsenal and a Premier League clash with Spurs.

They will be stretched and tested during a run that includes another league game with Fulham which they now know from experience will not be straightforward.

But these are the challenges that come with success. And these are astonishingly successful times for Palace.