(Football news) With seven top-flight games left this season, the hosts are now behind Arsenal on goal differential following their draw with Manchester United last weekend. Meanwhile, their opponents are currently sitting in 14th place after losing their previous five games.
In their attempt to win the top division for a second time under Jurgen Klopp’s guidance before his departure at the end of the season, Liverpool will look to regain the lead in what is expected to be a historic Premier League title race when they return to action on Sunday.
Indeed, Liverpool have held a strong position for almost the entirety of the campaign thus far, maintaining a top-two place since November and building a slender lead over Arsenal and defending champions Manchester City.
After moving just ahead of their two title rivals with a seven-match unbeaten streak, in which they picked up six victories alongside a draw with Manchester City at Anfield before seeing off Brighton & Hove Albion and Sheffield United on home turf, Klopp’s men travelled to Old Trafford to meet Manchester United on Sunday with 70 points on the board from 30 matches knowing a victory would see them move two ahead of Arsenal once again.
They did not succeed in doing so, though, despite going ahead in the first half through Luis Diaz, as Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo turned the game on its head with second-half goals for the hosts, before Mohamed Salah was at least able to salvage a point for the Merseyside giants six minutes from time, converting a penalty won by Harvey Elliott.
Facing a busy schedule towards the back end of the season, Liverpool now head into a crucial contest at the weekend on the back of a disappointing 3-0 home defeat to Atalanta on Thursday in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final tie, and they will set out to put that behind them and complete a double over Sunday’s visitors with Arsenal only leading on goal difference with seven games to.
Crystal Palace, meanwhile, travel to Liverpool with the aim of hurting the Reds’ title bid and scoring a first win over Liverpool since 2017, when they also visited Anfield in April and prevailed in a 2-1 triumph.
Aside from a pair of draws last season, each top-flight meeting between the two sides since has ended in a victory for the Merseyside outfit, including in a dramatic encounter at Selhurst Park in December, in which the Eagles led through Jean-Philippe Mateta, only for Salah to level for their opponents in the 76th minute and Harvey Elliott to snatch all three points with an injury-time winner.
That was one of 15 defeats in the London side’s 31 top-flight outings so far this term, and new boss Oliver Glasner is yet to oversee a notable improvement since his late February appointment, despite kicking off his tenure with a 3-0 beating of Burnley at Selhurst Park.
From their five attempts since, Glasner’s men have collected just two more points, with those coming from consecutive 1-1 draws against Luton Town and Nottingham Forest, before falling short away at AFC Bournemouth and most recently losing 4-2 at home to Manchester City last weekend, having gone ahead early through Mateta and pulled one back late on through Odsonne Edouard, after Kevin De Bruyne’s brace and goals from Rico Lewis and Erling Haaland had already put the game out of sight.
Although they are currently outside of the relegation zone, Crystal Palace only leads the drop zone by five points with seven games remaining, and they are currently only one point ahead of 16th-place Everton and 15th-place Brentford. With this in mind, they will be eager to secure a significant victory this weekend to keep themselves out of the last-minute mix.
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