Liverpool cut Manchester City‘s lead at the top of the Premier League table to nine points with a 3-1 win at Crystal Palace on Sunday to keep their faint title hopes alive.

The Reds took an early lead with Virgil van Dijk scoring a towering header from an Andrew Robertson corner in the eighth minute. Jurgen Klopp’s side were dominant in the first half, with Oxlade-Chamberlain – who returned to the side after recovering from an ankle injury – missing two chances in quick succession.

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But Liverpool doubled their advantage in the 32nd minute, with Robertson picking out Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s late run with a pinpoint crossfield ball that the midfielder controlled with his chest before rifling home. 

Their dominance continued after the restart, with Jordan Henderson firing wide after being found by another superb Robertson delivery. 

However, Crystal Palace halved the deficit in the 55th minute, with Odsonne Edouard scoring his sixth goal of the season to keep the Eagles in the game. The Frenchman converted a tap-in, set up by Jean-Philippe Mateta after he beat the offside trap to collect Jeffrey Schlupp’s through ball. 

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Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson made a string of excellent saves to keep his side’s lead intact, with one of the best ones coming in the 83rd minute – when the Brazilian brilliantly tipped away Michael Olise’s effort before clattering into the post. 

Liverpool got reprive in the form of a third goal – which came after VAR overturned the referee’s decision to award a spot-kick. Fabinho stepped up to convert the penalty to seal the three points.  

Klopp was full of praise for Alisson in his post-match comments.

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“I said to him just now, “thank you for saving our backside again”. He said, “that’s my job”. Of course it is very helpful to have a world-class goalkeeper at the back!” the 54-year-old German said. 

On the nine-point gap with City, Klopp said, “The distance is too far to talk about it but we don’t have to. We just need to win football matches.”

“Each Premier League game is difficult like we saw today. We made it more exciting than necessary! We will see what happens in the final few months,” he added.