Liverpool 4-3 Crystal Palace - 5 Talking Points, Premier League 2018-19

#3 Liverpool's defence fails - For once

Tomkins scored off a Milivojevic corner

The story of this season has been Liverpool being frugal at the back, with the spine of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker being instrumental in the Reds' defensive turnaround.

But on this afternoon at Anfield, it looked like the old Liverpool again. Generous in defence, and not defending set-pieces as well as they should.

It also didn't help the Reds that due to the injury crisis they are suffering in defensive areas, they had to play James Milner at right-back, and Wilfried Zaha could feast on him in one-on-one situations.

That was one area where Liverpool's tactics let them down. Given that Milner was not playing in his natural position, and was up against a player as dangerous as Zaha, he definitely needed more cover than was provided to him by his midfielders.

This 4-2-3-1 setup that Klopp has employed does relieve his wingers of some of their defensive duties, while expecting the two holding midfielders to cover for the full-backs.

Given that, it was rather surprising that both Jordan Henderson and Fabinho, who were otherwise excellent, didn't provide Milner with the cover he'd have so craved.

Van Dijk, too, was not his usual self. He had ZERO ground duels on the day, which sort of tells you what the Palace approach was. But, even with the aerial duels, in which he's generally so imperious, there was a little bit of uncertainty from the big Dutchman, who was a little ponderous.

Alisson, too, may have done much better than he did for Meyer's goal, which gave Palace a glimmer of hope in the dying seconds.

In the second half, especially, Joel Matip could be held at fault, too, for jumping into too many tackles too early, and not winning the ball.

In the end, the Liverpool attack bailed the defence out, returning the favour for the many clean-sheets which have pulled the Reds through, despite below-par offensive showings.