It was a horrible night to be a Liverpool fan. Having gone 3-0 up at Selhurst Park through Joe Allen, Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez, Brendan Rodgers’ side could see the shimmering mirage of an open-top bus parade and a league title still within reach.
Beaten by Chelsea eight days previous in the game which is now remembered as the moment their dreams turned to ashes – mainly thanks to the imprint Steven Gerrard’s slip made on the collective consciousness – they were left frantically chasing Manchester City’s superior goal difference.
Palace seemed like willing collaborators in a one-sided scoreline as the away fans urged Liverpool to make it five or six.
Instead, their opponents turned out to be avenging furies. Palace scored three goals in just under 10 minutes late on, leaving Gerrard down on his haunches and Suarez holding his shirt over his face in an effort to hide his tears.
What’s worse, Palace fans utterly revelled in their misery. The game soon became known as ‘The Miracle of Crystanbul’, a twisted, tongue-in-cheek parody of Liverpool’s famous three-goal comeback against AC Milan in the Champions League final under Rafa Benitez.
For a team who had looked almost certain to be relegated earlier in the season only to be revitalised by the dark wizardry of Tony Pulis, it was a night to remember. For Liverpool, it was the latest crushing setback in their seemingly endless quest to win the Premier League.
Moment of catharsis?
When Liverpool meet Crystal Palace at Anfield on Wednesday evening, even the most extreme pessimist would struggle to maintain that their title hopes are at risk.
Jurgen Klopp’s side need just five more points to win the league and, unlike Brendan Rodgers’ erstwhile title chasers, they do not suffer from a penchant for spectacular collapses or a deceptively squishy middle.
In the Premier League, at least, so much of this season has been about righting past wrongs. Last season’s record points haul as runners-up, Gerrard’s slip and ‘Crystanbul’, coming so close to the title under Benitez only to lose out to an imperious Manchester United: these are all about to become footnotes in the story of Liverpool ending the campaign as champions for the first time in 20 years.
Those narrative threads run all the way back to 1990 and, in bringing the fabled failures and near misses to an end, Klopp is essentially rewriting Liverpool’s modern history. Having already won at Selhurst Park this term, beating Palace again on the way to the title would exorcise one the last few ghosts from seasons gone by.
More importantly, three points against Palace would give Klopp and co the chance to win the league at the Etihad. It’s nowhere near a certainty, but that would be the ultimate catharsis: an echo of ‘Crystanbul’ in which Liverpool go on to win the title at City’s expense and their rivals are the ones left to dwell on a symbolic defeat.
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- Barnes exclusive: ‘Could I have played in this Liverpool team? Great players fit into any era’
- How Liverpool went from Europe’s best to waiting 30 years for another title
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3i6i2xY
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