Liverpool's April misery continued as they fell once more on the final furlong of the season.
After being comprehensively dismantled by Atalanta on Thursday evening, the reds yet again conceded first to an attack minded Crystal Palace who started the day in 15th place.
Over the past 10 days the reds have welcomed back plenty of injured players to the matchday squad and here to, Klopp made 5 changes as Alisson ended a break of 14 missing games by starting in goal.
That didn't help. He was beaten by Eze within 15 minutes and only a superb goal-line clearance from Andy Robertson stopped it being 2-0 before the half time break.
Curtis Jones return to the squad has not been of much use. His key intervention in the first half was attempting to tackle Alexis Mac Allister, and in the second he managed to put a wonderful one on one wide.
Salah continues to suffer and has been a peripheral figure of late - the runs and twists past defenders have dried up and he does not post much attacking threat down the wing.
XI: Alisson, Bradley, Konaté, van Dijk, Robertson, Endo, Mac Allister, Jones, Diaz, Núñez, Salah
Darwin Nunez had a purple patch at the turn of the year in the absence of Salah through injury - but that too has come to an end. He was lucky to last till midway through the second half before he was pulled.
Liverpool did have some bad luck - Dean Henderson made some saves he didn't know too much about and the reds lost Conor Bradley to injury. On came Trent Alexander-Arnold but when we needed precision he often tried the over-spectacular - both with shots and with passes.
The scoreboard flashed up 7 minutes injury time, but to be fair 70 wouldn't have been enough today for this Liverpool team who have forgotten how to score.
It was a first league loss at Anfield since October 2022.
There were tributes before the game on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, and a minute's silence will be observed by the players at 3:06 tomorrow afternoon.
The reds then travel to Atalanta for Thursday's game trying to somehow overturn a deficit of three goals to advance in the competition. With an inability to defend or score at present, that seems a challenge too great.
In the Premier League, the reds need to perfect in their final six games and hope that both Arsenal and Man City make further errors.
Jurgen Klopp's final few weeks as Liverpool boss appear to be ones filled with 'What if's?'
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: Liverpool 0-1 Palace
