London (AFP)

Hanging on by West Bromwich Albion, ultra-defensive and realistic (1-1), Liverpool missed a great opportunity to take even more field at the top of the Premier League during the 15th day.

While most of their pursuers had dropped points on Saturday, the Reds are finally only 3 points ahead of their new runner-up and local rival Everton.

For the West Midlands team, who recently called on the very experienced Sam Allardyce to try to extricate themselves from the red zone, in place of Slaven Bilic, this point taken tastes of hope, even if it remains penultimate with 8 points in 15 days, 5 units of maintenance.

The last coach to come and win in the league at Anfield, with Crystal Palace in April 2017 (2-1), "Big Sam" will undoubtedly never be crowned "best FIFA coach" two years in a row like Jürgen Klopp, but he played a good turn to its prestigious counterpart.

With extremely defensive tactics in the first half, two dense curtains of players in the last 30 meters, he had decided to fight with his meager weapons: combativeness and determination.

A plan that almost fell through in the 12th minute when Sadio Mané, receiving a nice pass between the lines from Joel Matip, controlled the ball and took a volley in the middle of the race to open the scoring (1 -0, 12e).

Liverpool copiously dominated the debates in the first act but, no doubt unconsciously, eased off, with the density of the calendar of the days to come in mind.

The Reds imprecise -

He was imprecise in the last move or the last pass, finishing with only 3 shots on target of 17, against 3 of 5 for his opponent, despite 78% possession.

Less curled up in defense after the break, the promoted's efforts to come back in the second half often looked like desperate attempts to find space, especially behind Trent Alexander-Arnold's back.

The first serious alert came from there, but Alisson was well interposed against Karlan Grant who had presented himself alone in front of him (72nd).

And they ended up being rewarded with a corner kick played in two stages and a header from Semi Ajayi, which was believed to come out after hitting the post, but who ended up coming back behind the line due to the effect given to the ball (1-1, 82nd).

Roberto Firmino almost snatched all three points off a header at the last minute of regulation time, but Sam Johnstone, the goalkeeper who made the most saves this season in the Premier League, had the right reflex to deflect it for a corner .

With Naby Keita's pre-match injury and Joel Matip's injury during the match, it's a frustrating evening for the defending champion.

© 2020 AFP