Liverpool end title-winning season with draw against Crystal Palace

FA Cup winners Crystal Palace did their best to spoil Liverpool’s title party as they secured a 1-1 draw at Anfield.

A 1-1 draw and Ryan Gravenberch’s red card could not dampen spirits as fans were not prepared to allow anything to spoil seeing the trophy lift in person for the first time in 35 years.

Mohamed Salah equalled the Premier League record of most goal involvements in a season – Andy Cole (1993-94) and Alan Shearer (1994-95) achieved 47 in a 42-game season – with an 84th-minute leveller.

And to prove the occasion was all about celebration even the tearful departing Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was jeered on his last appearance at Anfield, was welcomed back into the fold.

Supporters who were still maybe not prepared to forgive at least ensured the defender’s 354th and final appearance after a 20-year association with his boyhood club did not end on a sour note.

The words of former manager Jurgen Klopp on Friday evening, back at Anfield for the first time a year after leaving, saying fans were wrong in their treatment of the academy graduate succeeded in cutting through the noise surrounding his pending move for Real Madrid.

That indicates the spell the German can still cast over a fanbase who still worship him after a successful nine-year reign.

Alexander-Arnold seemed determined to make the most of the occasion, entering as a half-time substitute to warm if not loud applause, and it was one of his trademark raking, through-the-eye-of-a-needle passes which set up Liverpool’s best chance for fellow substitute Darwin Nunez.

That the Uruguay international could not take advantage, being denied by Dean Henderson, is one of the reasons why he too is likely to also leave in the summer, albeit with none of the acrimony