LONDON— Liverpool’s performance this season will not be one for the history books, manager Juergen Klopp said after goalless draw at Crystal Palace dented their hopes of finishing in the English Premier League’s top four.
“I see in your eyes and the players’ eyes as well (that) it looks like we lost the game – we didn’t,” Klopp told reporters.
“We spite ourselves with a lot of things, but you cannot suffer because of our own history.
“We spite ourselves with a lot of things, but you cannot suffer because of our own history. That would now be really a joke,” he added according to Reuters.
“This will not be the season that everybody (looks for) in the history books… it will not be big movies about it or stuff like this. But we have to go through it anyway and we will.”
Arsenal and Manchester City continued to slug it out in the League title race with wins over Leicester City and Bournemouth respectively while at the bottom Leeds United moved out of the relegation zone.
Thrashed 5-2 at home by Real Madrid in their Champions League last 16 tie on Tuesday, Juergen Klopp’s inconsistent side laboured against a Palace team who kept a first clean sheet against Liverpool for 18 years.
The Reds moved up a place to seventh, six points behind fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur with a game in hand.
Without a win in eight league games, Palace is 12th, six points above the relegation zone.
Mohamed Salah hit the woodwork for Liverpool in the second-half but Palace had two gilt-edged chances in the first period with Marc Guehi heading wide and Jean-Philippe Mateta firing a shot against the crossbar.
Liverpool will take some comfort from a third successive league clean sheet but they were well short of their best as they struggled to find any rhythm.
“We’d like a better performance and three points but we didn’t get that,” midfielder James Milner said.
“We have to keep going. We’re our harshest critics. It’s important we don’t listen to the noise outside. It’s down to us. We’re the only ones who can change it.”
Liverpool dominated early on without really opening up Palace’s defence and were lucky that Patrick Vieira’s side’s problems scoring goals again surfaced.
Palace had the best chances before the break, the first when Michael Olise delivered a superb cross from a free kick but Guehi could not direct his powerful header on target.
The hosts were close again when Jeffrey Schlupp seized on some poor defending by Trent Alexander-Arnold and crossed low for Mateta who should have scored but clipped the crossbar.
Liverpool started brightly in the second period with Harvey Elliott coming off the bench to liven up their midfield and they nearly scored when Diogo Jota’s shot was blocked and the ball fell to Salah whose shot hit the bar.
Their threat receded though and the hosts looked just as likely to take maximum points, though a draw was about right as Palace earned a first home point against Liverpool since 2014.
Gabriel Martinelli earned Arsenal a 1-0 win at Leicester City to briefly send them five points clear, but City responded with a 4-1 rout of struggling Bournemouth as Erling Haaland netted a club record 27th Premier League goal in a season.
New Leeds manager Javi Gracia’s reign began with a vital 1-0 win over bottom club Southampton as Junior Firpo’s goal snapped a 10-game winless run to move them into 17th place.
West Ham United also secured three valuable points as Danny Ings scored his first goals for the club with the hosts netting four times in the second half to thump fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest 4-0 at the London Stadium.
Everton fell back into the bottom three though as they went down 2-0 at home to Aston Villa.
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