Crystal Palace Hopeful for a Historic Win over Liverpool | OneFootball

Liverpool will hope to take the newfound confidence they found in the breathless 2-1 win in the Merseyside Derby and beat Crystal Palace when Premier League action returns to Anfield this Saturday.

Indeed, Arne Slot’s men left it until the 100th minute to beat their city rivals Everton last time out , with Virgil Van Dijk popping up with a perfect header to overcome David Moyes’ side.

Now, it’s a return to home soil for Slot’s side. They won their last home match against Fulham, when Mohamed Salah and Rio Ngumoha were the scorers.

Liverpool Chasing Champions League

With five Premier League games left of the season, every match has an importance, with Liverpool very close to clinching a top five spot, which will see them seal Champions League football, especially if they pick up another three points against the Eagles on Saturday.

While Liverpool’s dented confidence has been boosted somewhat by the drama that unfolded at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, their recent form doesn’t make for the best reading, heading into Saturday’s clash.

The wins picked up against Fulham and the Toffees was as good as it has got for Slot’s men, in recent matches, with defeats to Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, knocking the Merseyside titans out of the FA Cup and Champions League in the process.

Slot will be hopeful that his team will be able to pick up back-to-back wins against Palace, though, having not lost on their own turf in the Premier League since the start of February.

Overcoming the visitors from South London will require a much-improved performance in attack because Palace will be no pushovers, either, making the lengthy journey up to Liverpool from the capital.

Uneasy History Between the Clubs

Across their last five matches in all competitions, manager Oliver Glasner’s side have only come unstuck once, as they lost 2-1 in their second leg Conference League quarter-final showdown to Fiorentina.

While recent history dictates that Liverpool hate facing the South London club, overall, the Reds do have 37 wins from 69 total meetings against The Eagles.

This is never an easy win for the Mersey men and Dutch coach Slot will want to ensure he continues being in Liverpool fans’ good books with speculation over his future continuing amid his poor Premier League title defence.

Already this season, Slot side have been on the receiving end of three losses when facing Glasner’s assured outfit, with the Community Shield defeat right at the start of the campaign, then followed up by equally bruising losses in the Premier League and EFL Cup.

If Palace were to win at Anfield on Saturday afternoon, too, they’d be the first team since Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal to complete a double over Liverpool on their own patch, in a single season, which is a record that has stayed solid since the 2006-07 season.

The Coach’s Takes

Slot has spoken at length of Palace’s strengths, with the clash ahead not going to be a walk in the park, by any stretch of the imagination.

He said: “What has made it difficult are the players we face – players such as Guéhi, Eze and Olise, who have now left. But they have maintained a high level thanks to a good manager who has created good discipline in that team. It is really hard to create chances against them. No matter what games I watch of them you watch 60 minutes and the other team haven’t created a chance.

“At other end they are very direct with good attackers going quite fast. I think they have conceded, after Arsenal, the fewest goals and there’s a reason for that.”

Glasner refuted a suggestion he might have an eye on next week’s European Conference League semi-final against Shakhtar Donetsk. He said: “No. Saturday to Thursday feels like a very long spell between. We are just preparing the players for the Liverpool game. We have the opportunity to beat Liverpool four times in one season which is unique, and we are really highly motivated because maybe this will never happen again and it is a massive chance.”