LIVERPOOL: Liverpool will try to maintain its place at the top of the league table on Sunday when the rival Manchester United pay a visit to Anfield.
Jurgen Klopp's squad is unbeaten with six victories in its last eight league games and moved above Arsenal into the league lead with a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace that featured the latest in a season of dramatic rallies.
Liverpool (11-1-4, 37 points) was down a goal for much of the second half before Palace's Jordan Ayew was dismissed for his second yellow card offense.
From there, Mohamed Salah scored his 11th league goal on a deflected shot and Harvey Elliott steered a left-footed, 20-yard winner into the bottom right corner early in second-half stoppage time.
That brought Liverpool's total to 18 points earned after falling behind, a trend that began back in August in a 3-1 win over Bournemouth in its home opener.
"That helps the process definitely if you get through it," Klopp said of learning to win from behind. "If you don't get through it, it's the opposite actually. But we got through this and that was extremely helpful."
Things have been more turbulent for Erik ten Hag's Manchester United (9-7-0, 27 points) in part because they've not shown an ability to score enough goals to overcome poor starts.
The Red Devils have scored three times only twice this league campaign and have yet to exceed that total.
And while their league form seemed to be improving in November even while they struggled through UEFA Champions League group play, a 3-0 home loss to Bournemouth has dropped Man U to seventh in the table entering the weekend. A subsequent 1-0 home loss to Bayern Munich in midweek eliminated Man U from all continental competition.
United's confidence could be shaky heading to the venue where they suffered their worst loss last season. And Bruno Fernandes, who has three league goals and a team-leading three assists, will headline a lengthy list of unavailable players as he serves a card-accumulation suspension.
Ten Hag insists that 7-0 defeat at Liverpool back in March was a deceptive result given the performance and shouldn't weigh on his side.
"I didn't see last season that we were scared there," ten Hag said. "In the first half, I think we played very decent and we had got hammered just after half-time. Then we collapsed. Yes, that can't happen, but that was last year. It was a different team with different players, for a part at least."--REUTERS