A scrappy, tetchy game of football; two disputed penalty decisions; a deflected equaliser; whole minutes of aimless waiting around while a man in shorts watched a little screen. And then, finally, a moment of grace that this game categorically did not deserve and Liverpool barely did. It came from Harvey Elliott, gliding through the Crystal Palace defence like a man dancing on lily pads, scoring the injury-time goal that earned Liverpool another grubby and scowling three points. Improbably, almost imperceptibly, they are now top of the Premier League, after Arsenal’s defeat at Aston Villa.
And in the end, the only thing that ended up “spoiled” was Roy Hodgson’s day. After being forced to apologise for his comments in midweek that Palace fans needed to be more grateful, this was a fixture that suited his browbeaten underdog persona perfectly. Palace did almost everything right here: frustrated, defended tightly, scored on the break. Until a soft second yellow card issued to Jordan Ayew with 15 minutes remaining, they were good value for a famous victory.
