Liverpool Beat Crystal Palace 3-1 as Andoni Iraola Gets the Response He Needed

Liverpool went into the international break with a 3-1 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, and the bare facts matter here. After back-to-back defeats and a draining midweek trip to Turkiye, Andoni Iraola needed a reaction. He got one.

Alexis Mac Allister opened the scoring, Florian Wirtz added the second, Alexander Isak scored again, and the contest was effectively over before Eddie Nketiah’s late penalty trimmed the margin. The scoreline suggests comfort. The game itself did not, at least not for an hour.

Iraola’s reading of it was straightforward. Liverpool were open in the first half, better organised in the second, and grateful to Alisson Becker for making the kind of intervention that changes the flow of a difficult away match. That was accurate. Palace created enough early on to ask serious questions, and Liverpool needed their goalkeeper to answer them.

Photo: IMAGO

Liverpool reaction after difficult week

This was not a polished display from start to finish. It did not need to be. Liverpool arrived after a physically awkward week, late travel, and another away assignment in a stadium where games quickly become scrappy and congested. Selhurst Park tends to produce that sort of match, short on rhythm and full of incidents in both boxes.

In the first half, Palace were in it. Liverpool had attacking moments, but there was looseness to their shape and not enough precision in the final pass. That is where the game could have drifted. Instead, Mac Allister’s goal gave Liverpool something invaluable, control without actually dominating.

Once ahead, the task changed. Palace had to come forward a little more, spaces opened up, and Liverpool’s attackers had more room to work with. That is when the match started to look more like something Iraola would recognise. It became less frantic and more manageable.

There was also a practical edge to Liverpool’s play in the second half. They defended deeper phases better, protected central areas more cleanly and looked far less vulnerable when Palace tried to turn pressure into momentum. That part will please Iraola as much as the result.

Alisson Becker and Florian Wirtz shape the result

If there was one player who held Liverpool together when the match was unstable, it was Alisson. The key save in the first half kept the contest level long enough for Liverpool to settle, and his later one-on-one stop preserved the authority of the lead. There are matches where a goalkeeper is busy. There are others where he is decisive. This was the second category.

Iraola also made a point that often gets ignored with Alisson, his command of the box. At grounds like this, where the pitch feels tight and the ball returns to danger zones quickly, a goalkeeper who controls the area removes anxiety from the back line. Alisson did exactly that.

Wirtz, meanwhile, produced the contribution Liverpool have been waiting for in the league. He scored, he created, and more importantly he looked influential rather than merely involved. There has been a sense that Premier League rewards have lagged behind his general level, with disallowed goals and near-misses cluttering the start of his campaign. Here, the quality landed where it mattered, on the scoreboard.

His goal made the game safer, and his assist underlined Liverpool’s improved decision-making once Palace began to stretch. Wirtz found the spaces, but Liverpool’s movement around him mattered too. There was more purpose, more clarity, and far less wasted possession in advanced areas after the break.

Alexander Isak impact goes beyond another goal

Isak scored again, which is what people will notice first, and fair enough. Goals decide the conversation around centre-forwards. But Iraola highlighted something more useful, his movement for Wirtz’s goal.

Good strikers score. Smart strikers create room for others by threatening spaces defenders fear. Isak’s run to the near post did that. It dragged the line, opened the channel behind him and created the lane for Wirtz to arrive. That sort of movement rarely gets top billing, but coaches value it because it turns attacking patterns into chances.

It also fitted a broader theme in Liverpool’s forward play, less selfishness, better timing, and a greater willingness to make the run that benefits somebody else. That can be the difference between an attack that looks talented and one that functions properly.

Isak also passed up another one-on-one, so this was not a flawless afternoon from him. It did not matter. He remained a problem for Palace, and he still ended with another goal to his name. Strikers are paid for output, and he delivered it.

Dominik Szoboszlai fitness concern before international break

The one sour note for Iraola was Dominik Szoboszlai. He finished the game below full fitness after a knee issue and was eventually withdrawn. The concern is obvious. Managers hate losing players to international duty when they are already carrying something, and Liverpool have recent reason to be wary after the previous break cost them key absences.

Iraola’s position was simple enough. Szoboszlai was not 100 per cent by the end, the medical staff will have to assess him, and the player will naturally want to join Hungary if he can. That is standard. So is the tension between club caution and international commitment.

For Liverpool, the timing is awkward because the next league fixture is a major one against Manchester United. Wins like this improve the mood and the table, but they do not eliminate the need for cleaner attacking execution and better control in open first halves. Iraola said as much in different terms. Liverpool are in a good place, not a finished one.

That is the right conclusion. This was a valuable away win, built on key saves, improved second-half structure and enough quality in attack to punish a side that could not sustain its early threat. Liverpool were not flawless, and that is fine. They were efficient, resilient and, after the week they had, badly in need of all three points.

The late penalty will irritate Iraola because clean sheets matter, even in matches already won. Still, the bigger picture is clear. Liverpool stopped the slide, got Wirtz another meaningful contribution, saw Isak score again, and came through an awkward afternoon with authority restored.