Every major Premier League club has their bogey team – a side of inferior quality that inexplicably, always seems to get the better of them.
Chelsea’s least favourite hunting ground is the north-east, claiming just one point from their travels to Newcastle and Sunderland this season, Sam Allardyce’s Bolton Wanderers continually plagued Manchester United during the Sir Alex Ferguson era, and Swansea City have beaten Arsenal four times out of a possible eight since their Premier League ascension in 2011 – including a double this season.
Liverpool’s bogey team is unquestionably Crystal Palace – the perennial party-poopers pouring liquid brown on their shiny red parades. They’ve claimed seven points from their last four Premier League clashes with the Mersey outfit and developed a particular knack for ruining Liverpool’s big occasions.
Last season, the Eagles’ dramatic three-goal comeback effectively ended Liverpool’s hopes of claiming the Premier League title (poignantly, 15 years after the Hillsborough disaster) and last weekend, they ran riot to record a 3-1 victory in Steven Gerrard’s final ever appearance at Anfield. Whenever the weight of history and sentiment appears to be firmly on Liverpool’s side, Palace emerge from the shadows to bluntly remind us that it’s not.
Part of the beauty of football is that it often defies logic, seemingly driven by emotive fairytales rather than talent or physics. But there must be some reason behind Liverpool’s eternal struggles against Palace… mustn’t there?
ALAN PARDEW AND TONY PULIS VS BRENDAN RODGERS
Managers seem to take the stick for everything that happens in the Premier League nowadays so where better to start than a head-to-head of Alan Pardew and Tony Pulis vs Brendan Rodgers? Rather interestingly, throughout his tenures with Swansea City and Liverpool, the Ulsterman has a rather tepid track record against both.
Since first arriving in the Premier League with the Welsh outfit in summer 2011, Rodgers has only beaten Pulis once – his second encounter with the 57 year-old whilst in charge of Stoke City. Overall, Pulis has claimed two wins and three draws against Rodgers, giving him nine points in comparison to the Anfield gaffer’s six, including a recent 2-2 at the Hawthorns.
Against Pardew, he fares a little better, twice beating Newcastle as Liverpool boss – including a six-nil thrashing at the end of the 2012/13 campaign. But he never got the better of the 53 year-old whilst donning the dugout at Swansea, losing once and drawing once to the former Magpies gaffer.
Including the recent defeat to Palace, Pardew boasts twelve points to Rodgers’ nine, also beating him with Newcastle back in November. But one has to consider Pulis’ underlying influence once again; after all, Pardew has made very few changes to the side he inherited from the now-West Brom boss that recorded the emphatic 3-3 against Liverpool at the end of last term.
Yet, there’s a very important anomaly. At the start of the campaign, amid a run of six defeats in their first twelve Premier League fixtures, Palace thumped Liverpool 3-1 under the direction of Neil Warnock – one of just three wins for the Eagles until Pardew took over in January. So what other factors could be involved?
PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT
Palace lost to Liverpool during their first encounter last season, albeit at that time under Ian Holloway, so one has to consider whether their two victories over the Reds this year are subconsciously linked to that notorious 3-3 at Selhurst Park.
After all, the Eagles sucker-punched the Reds at the height of their momentum as they honed in on the English crown, even going three goals behind until an incredible final ten minutes in which Damien Delaney found a header and Dwight Gayle recorded a brace. Before that triple-salvo, Liverpool were attacking relentlessly in an effort to close their goal difference deficit on Manchester City. They were in full control, so being brought down to earth in such a short space of time must’ve had a significant psychological impact.
Although Liverpool’s squad and starting Xi have both changed somewhat this season, that experience must still lay deep in the memories of certain players – particularly the likes of Simon Mignolet, Martin Skrtel, Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho, who all featured on Saturday.
One can argue it should leave them seeking revenge or alternatively fearful of another embarrassment; but you get the same result of an imbalanced mindset either way. Rather tellingly, summer additions Emre Can, Alberto Moreno, Dejan Lovren and goalscorer Adam Lallana were the stronger performers in the 3-1 defeat last weekend.
STYLE OF PLAY
Personally, however, I view style of play as arguably the biggest influence. Crystal Palace and Liverpool are like chalk and cheese; the former, seemingly thriving on having as little of the ball as possible – and when they do, being as direct with it as possible – the latter, a team that like to retain possession and score well-worked goals. Unsurprisingly, Liverpool rank fifth for possession in the Premier League at 55.7%, whereas the south Londoners are rock bottom with just 40.3%. During last weekend’s defeat, the share was 59.8% to 40.2%.
And this isn’t just the case against Crystal Palace. During Liverpool’s three Premier League campaigns under Rodgers, they’ve lost to Aston Villa, Hull City, Palace and West Brom twice each – four sides who all play a similar style of direct, organised, counter-attacking football and tend to revolve around the same segment of the Premier League table. The only sides they’ve lost equally or more frequently to in that same time period are Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United.
What this says about Liverpool is open to interpretation. In regards to Palace and particularly last weekend, there wasn’t nearly enough protection down the flanks to nullify the relentless threats of Yannick Bolasie and Wilfried Zaha, which is no surprise considering Liverpool deployed wing-backs that were more part of the midfield than the defence in Alberto Moreno and Jordan Ibe. Even before Rodgers ushered in the era of 3-4-2-1, the likes of Glen Johnson, Aly Cissokho and John Flanagan were never the most conservative of full-backs.
But there’s a little more to it than that. Liverpool’s weaknesses at set pieces have been widely documented this season, and Crystal Palace boast the joint-most goals from dead ball situations of any Premier League outfit at 18 – alongside the recurring theme of West Brom. Likewise, one could argue they lack the tenacity off the ball of the Premier League’s rank and file; or perhaps most importantly, the quality going forward to consistently break down teams who sit deep. Rather tellingly, Hull City and Southampton were the only non-top-four sides Liverpool lost to last season whilst their front three of Raheem Sterling, Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez, two of which have been absent this season, were in full swing.
SO HOW CAN LIVERPOOL STOP THE ROT?
The Reds’ weaknesses and the Eagles’ strengths are pretty much institutionalised at this point; no matter how much work is done on the training field, they’re almost intentionally designed to purposely juxtapose each other. The catch 22 that keeps getting Liverpool, however, is the more they play their natural game, the more they accommodate Palace’s defensive and direct mantra.
Could they create a specific game-plan to stop another Palace victory next season? Perhaps – Brendan Rodgers is a shrewder tactician than many give him credit for. But whether the Liverpool gaffer is willing to compromise his entire philosophical beliefs for just one game – especially considering there will undoubtedly be more pivotal fixtures on Liverpool’s calendar next term – remains to be seen. In my opinion, due to the manner in which their respective styles are almost ‘in their DNA’, to paraphrase David Moyes, Palace’s bogey team status over the Merseysiders could continue for some time.