Liverpool vs. Crystal Palace: 3 takeaways from another fantastic victory

Liverpool earned this

Although many Premier League fans wrote Liverpool off about a month ago when they were seemingly mired in dysfunction and decimated by injuries, the club and the fans never lost their heads. Jurgen Klopp must have been frustrated by all the comparisons to the ending of his tenures at Borussia Dortmund and Mainz 05, and maybe some fans were worried that those comparisons would ring true amidst an already-taxing season with injuries then compounded to it – and all at one vital position, no less.

But Liverpool kept fighting. This team has always been built around heart and intensity, and you can see it in the building-block players who remained. Even the likes of Gini Wijnaldum, who was not in his best form this season, never quit nor got frustrated by errors. Liverpool’s players gave 100 percent for the fans, for their coach, and for the badge.

In the end, they were rewarded for all their hard work. Fortune started to turn in the Reds’ favor, perhaps epitomized most by the goals Sadio Mane scored in a Man of the Match-caliber performance at Anfield, during a season that has been personally frustrating for the Senegalese superstar.

Klopp can look back at this season as one of his finest achievements as manager, up there with all the silverware he collected in Dortmund and even here at Anfield. Because the legendary German manager’s love for his players, level-headed leadership, and quick tactical thinking were all on full display in the final, frenetic stretch of the Premier League season.