Slot avoids ‘calamity’ as one-word assessment of Liverpool villain is clear

“I am not a saint,” said Paolo Di Canio. “I saw the goalkeeper was on the ground and in pain. During the game, the opposition is my enemy. But when they are injured, they are my colleagues and I must help them. Only stupid people would say I was wrong.”

Until the 72nd minute of Liverpool’s game against Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon, it was unknown exactly where Daniel Munoz stood on that moral conundrum. But his response to the now common sight of a stricken Reds keeper revealed all.

With Freddie Woodman clutching his knee and remaining prone after a bright save from Ismaila Sarr, Munoz took a touch, considered his options and deemed it better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

It was the only way Woodman’s clean sheet would be spoiled. Munoz lofted the ball into an empty net no Liverpool player had the foresight to guard while their keeper failed to get back to his feet, and Palace had halved the deficit.

Arne Slot was furious but would have been encouraged with how Liverpool held firm in the face of a slightly farcical situation – and the fact Woodman continued playing after treatment.

The third-choice keeper was first class again. Woodman produced five saves at Anfield, including two from Jean-Philippe Mateta in the five minutes between Alexander Isak’s opener and a fine Andy Robertson strike.

This was no perfect Liverpool performance, but a good enough one to warrant a win which grants them an Aston Villa-shaped buffer and eight-point lead over the chasing pack for Champions League qualification.

The Robertson goal, possibly his last before leaving in the summer, combined with Mo Salah’s injury-enforced substitution and elongated acknowledgement of the fans on what could be his final appearance for the club, gave this game a curious feel.

It was always going to be a different sort of atmosphere with the protest against ticket prices underlining the continued divide between supporters and owners,

The future of Arne Slot is another sticking point in that ongoing civil war, but this should avert the only sort of ‘calamity’ that might have seen him sacked for this season’s risible title defence.

Three successive wins has pushed that debate further from the agenda, with media briefings suggesting Slot will be manager at the start of next season and Dominic King of the Daily Telegraph reporting that only the ‘calamity’ of a season-closing run of five straight defeats would challenge Slot’s support base sufficiently enough to force a change.

Liverpool’s four-game losing run across September and October – triggered by a late defeat to Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park – equalled their worst such sequence in Premier League history, so Slot’s safety can be assumed.

The caveats that have defined this season will not last long into next, but goals from Isak and Florian Wirtz do underscore a certain wisdom in giving Slot time to figure out how to play with the £450m worth of toys he was bequeathed in the summer.

But that patience must be limited; Liverpool still looked vulnerable here, and a better team would have punished them.

Had Mateta, Sarr or Jorgen Strand Larsen displayed that same ruthlessness as Munoz, Anfield might have protested more than the cost of the tickets.