Liverpool occupy the Crystal Palace pitch like a team of peacekeepers Liverpool

On a hazy, dreamy afternoon at Selhurst Park, all gentle sun and balmy air, Liverpool produced something that seemed to suit the day, an exercise in control and the problems of control. A 1-0 win means they will stay top of the league until the end of October. This is now a highly functioning unit. They have a good coach, good players, an excellent central midfield and the fewest goals conceded in the league.

At the same time, Liverpool somehow held on in the second half of a game that seemed like an expertly orchestrated act of euthanasia, with the corpse inexplicably waking up after trying to talk things through for an hour.

First came the anesthesia. For 45 minutes, this was first-class Coldplay football, a controlled stadium experience of the highest order. Score. Wait. Win. This was the best of Arne Slot's development in Liverpool so far. Six of their eight wins followed the pattern: take the lead, control possession and win.

At half-time Liverpool were 1-0 up, with 73% possession and the feeling that the pieces on the board were being moved around. They weren't exactly dominant. “Dominant” suggests some sort of struggle, or at least a secondary element that needs to be dominated. Instead, Liverpool occupied Selhurst Park like a team of peacekeepers.

This was a team in eco mode, regenerative braking football, a game of sophisticated and sensible gas management. This style also presents its own problems. Palace have been criticized for their lack of aggression in the first half, where they didn't commit a single foul. But Liverpool can do it too. In these moments you are essentially being treated with chloroform. Give in. Sleep.

Teams will learn to respond and Palace showed more in the second half after the introduction of Jean-Philippe Mateta. They might have conceded a penalty, but they didn't quite meet the bar for stopping a corner. Eberechi Eze failed to finish a good opening after an excellent break. As the end drew closer, Liverpool became less, not more, incisive. The problem with lowering the temperature is that you can always raise it again and press the lever when you need it. Control is hard. It is not passive or cold. It is also an act of aggression.

It's also something Liverpool are still learning. At the beginning it was interesting to see how the back four were constantly talking, moving back and forth and rearranging each other. Form, not energy, is everything now.

The only goal came after eight minutes through a wonderfully simple move. Kostas Tsimikas played a straight through ball into the left-back channel as the Palace defense faltered. Cody Gakpo placed the cross in the most logical place. Diogo Jota did a classic poacher diagonal run and finished with a cool little toe kick.

This was a rational goal, an empirically sensible goal. Palace pressed high and left space on the wing with two narrow central midfielders. Trevoh Chalobah obviously had to figure out how to work properly with his left wing-back in his first start. This is a sensitive point. We will push for it.

For a while afterwards, the game was like a movie, with things constantly threatening to happen but never happening. Jota should have made it 2-0. Perhaps Liverpool would suffer from “not finishing the game”? But they didn't really do that. Instead, Palace were simply anchored in their own half for long stretches. Liverpool can play a high line, keep the ball and maintain possession in the midfield space. They'll just strangle you if this works.

Ryan Gravenberch was excellent again, such a lovable, easy-going mover who was always looking around even when rushing into the clinch. He touched the ball 40 times in the first half hour. It would be a surprise to hear that he actually broke a sweat doing it. From a distance, Gravenberch looked like he was quietly mowing the lawn or listening to a podcast while also dominating a Premier League midfield.

The most interesting aspect, of course, is how quickly this Liverpool team got here, the journey from constant full throttle to carbon, led by a beaming petrolhead in a baseball cap, hitting the pedal in his sweat-drenched running shoes, sipping another energy drink, the Windows rolled down, pompous rock classics on repeat. Moving to zero emissions so effectively is a remarkable thing, a tribute to Slot's clarity and persuasiveness. It's also worth noting that Liverpool came here in December 2020, won 7-0, went to the top of the table, then practically fell apart due to an injury crisis and didn't win again at home until March.

You now have a range of games that will properly test and refine the more moderate style. It seems obvious enough that this is a team that will try to build up the other gears to get the aggression out of control. Watching Liverpool win here was sometimes like sitting through a finely honed piece of music with no emotional highlights, just waiting for a Mozart to come along and hammer in a few trills and leaps. But the top of the league isn't a bad place to learn from.