The most notable thing about Alisson’s save against Crystal Palace on Saturday was that it was the first such save by a Liverpool goalkeeper this season.
His move to deny Miguel Almiron, who won the Premier League’s Save of the Month award in August and could have won the annual award with his performance in the 2-1 win over Newcastle, looms large.
However, this stoppage was similar on the offensive end to Jefferson Lerma. On both occasions, the power of the shot meant that Alisson could only force his shot into the goal despite having a firm hand on the ball.
Here he had to run after Trent Alexander-Arnold to avoid crossing the line.If the shot had hit the goalkeeper, no one would have questioned the goalkeeper. Lema looked intent on scoring both before and after contact. This is probably the best way to sum up the difficulty of saving.
As Palace looked to equalize towards the end of added time, the Brazilian also swooped down to save Joachim Andersen’s shot.
Replays showed the Dane was offside, but Alisson was unaware of this at the time. Although he failed to keep a clean sheet here – Jean-Philippe Mateta beat him from the penalty spot – it was a performance that demonstrated his status as the world’s best at his place.
He is not the only Liverpool player in this story. Alexander-Arnold has long been in contention for the title with the likes of Kyle Walker and Reece James, while Virgil van Dijk, once the unanimous number one defender, now competes with William Saliba and Ruben Diaz.
