Wirtz Breaks His Duck as Liverpool End Losing Run With 3-1 Win at Crystal Palace

Selhurst Park has never been a kind place for visiting teams, and for the best part of an hour on Sunday it looked as though Liverpool might be dragged into another of those long south London afternoons. Crystal Palace pressed, harried and carved out the better openings. Then Alexis Mac Allister rose to meet a free kick, Florian Wirtz finally found the net, and the champions remembered how to win.

It was Mac Allister who broke the deadlock five minutes before half-time, and it was a goal that said everything about the way this game was going. Liverpool had been second best for long stretches, surviving on the reflexes of Alisson Becker, who twice denied the hosts — first from Quinten Timber, then from Adam Wharton — as Palace hunted an opener. But set pieces have been Palace's undoing all season, and when Dominik Szoboszlai swung a free kick into the box in the 40th minute, Mac Allister peeled away from his marker unmarked and flicked a header past the goalkeeper. Against the run of play, Liverpool led.

The second half belonged to Wirtz. Nine minutes after the restart, Bradley Barcola burst into space down the flank and drilled a low cross through a crowded penalty area. It evaded every Palace defender and found the German arriving at the far post, where he steered a first-time finish into the bottom corner. It was his first Premier League goal of the season — and, curiously, his last in the competition had come against these same opponents back in April. He had waited long enough.

"I'm really happy about the win. I think that's all that counts," Wirtz said afterwards. "I would say that we were just efficient in front of the goal. We didn't have so many clear chances. Maybe we did, I don't know, but it felt like we didn't have so many big chances. I think scoring three goals is always good. I think we defended also quite well. So, a good team performance."

The third arrived in the 89th minute, and it was Wirtz again at the heart of it. Liverpool broke at speed, the German slipped Alexander Isak through, and the Swede finished clinically from the centre of the box. It was Isak's seventh goal of the season, leaving him two behind the league's leading scorer, Erling Haaland, and it sealed a win that had felt far from certain an hour earlier.

Palace did find a consolation in stoppage time, Eddie Nketiah converting from the spot in the 95th minute after Osorio was felled in the area, but it could not disguise the scale of the defeat. The Eagles are now bottom of the Premier League, still searching for a first win in four, and the pressure on manager Pierre Sage is mounting with every passing week.

For Liverpool, the timing could hardly be better. The win ends a run of two straight defeats and carries them into the November international break in fourth place on 18 points from ten games, nine behind leaders Arsenal — and still unbeaten away from home this season. "I think we are always confident because we know what a team we have and what quality we have," Wirtz added. "It doesn't really matter if it's away from home but for sure we need to get more points also in the home games." On this evidence, the away form is the least of their worries.