WINNING UGLY!
Liverpool’s savage intensity keeps Chelsea at bay. . .just
The league table shows why Liverpool’s fans are happy — five points clear still, six games in. Yet Chelsea’s supporters left singing the name of their manager, too, on the day they slipped into the bottom half of the table. Sometimes there is more to a match than meets the eye.
It could be found in the secondhalf here, which Chelsea won, albeit pointlessly. This is a young team, still missing several significant players, yet they ran Liverpool desperately close. And Liverpool are good. Really good.
Good enough to be the first to start consecutive Premier League seasons with six straight wins. Good enough to be leading the table by a record margin at this stage in the season. Good enough to be on the longest winning streak of league games in the club’s history. And good enough to find ways to sweep important games.
Yesterday it was two beautifully worked free-kicks that made the difference — the first curled home by Trent Alexander-Arnold, the next completed by a Roberto Firmino header. The execution was straight off the training ground with a sprinkling of personal inspiration and left Chelsea with an insurmountable obstacle to overcome.
Liverpool haven’t lost a league game from a leading position since going down 2-1 to Crystal Palace at Anfield on April 23, 2017. So it was very unlikely that was going to happen here. Chelsea might have done enough to equalise, but to win? Probably not.
Liverpool’s energy and defensive resilience told in the end, as it so often does these days. And there really is no such thing as a beautiful title win. even Manchester City had to get it done ugly at times last season. So if free-kicks, plenty of hard running and a whole lot of screaming from Jurgen Klopp were what was needed, so be it.
As last season’s points totals confirmed, this is a desperately hard league to win. And it is for good reason that Klopp insists on savage intensity, always. The one time Fabinho delegated to his teammates, rather than taking it upon himself to close N’Golo Kante down, that was Chelsea’s equaliser. There were 19 minutes remaining when the Chelsea man collected the ball in a central position, dribbled it into the box and, as Fabinho gestured for cover, struck a low shot that brought Chelsea back into contention. Chelsea may be a long way behind Liverpool in terms of experience, but Klopp is an admirer and gets what Lampard is doing. Judging by their reaction the fans do, too. They will put up with a year of transition if the way forward can be seen and, on days like this, it is obvious, no matter the result.
There is a good, young team waiting to break loose under Lampard and Liverpool needed all of their famed energy to keep them at bay.
Bottom line, Liverpool are five points clear for many reasons — and a lot of them were on display yesterday afternoon. Tenacity, tight defending, courage, excellent finishing.
This was the perfect response to their blip against Napoli last week, the continuation of a domestic run that is as hard fought as it is impressive — one loss in 45 league games and that against Manchester City, away. They have taken 118 points out of a possible 135.
It was not Chelsea’s day, really. Injuries, VAR and their own failings conspired against them in the first half.
They could have led Liverpool 2-1 after 27 minutes, instead 30 minutes in they found themselves trailing by two goals and close to
out of the game. Against opposition this strong, Lampard needed all the help he could get. He had none. Chelsea were architects of their own downfall, sure. But the odd break that can get a team back into the game eluded them.
Still, it’s what we all wanted, these marginal VAR calls, yes? Actually, no. We wanted travesties, clear and obvious mistakes corrected, not infringements measured by slide rulers that cause dramatic, random momentum swings.
So, in that respect, Chelsea were a little unfortunate. Yet they were also rash at key moments against a team that requires no assistance.
Liverpool — 10 minutes in Naples aside — have been close to flawless this season. Chelsea are callow and raw. It was hardly a surprise that they were made to pay, in those circumstances.
The free- kick that Andreas Christensen gave away on the edge of the area after 14 minutes was unnecessary. He had one go at Sadio Mane, didn’t succeed, had another and took his legs. Mohamed Salah stood over the ball and then rolled it, with a smart backheel, into the path of Alexander-Arnold.
His shot was superb — in the corner of the net, out of the reach of Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga. Should he have done better? Well, he is the most expensive in the world in his position. As such, he’ll be disappointed, one imagines.
Then came the three minutes that changed the game for Chelsea.
Tammy Abraham looked lively, as befits a 21-year-old striker with his recent record. Yet taking chances in games like this is what defines a player as he comes of age and, after 24 minutes, Abraham fell short.
It was a hopeful punt upfield that created the move, but Abraham’s run was perfect and took him several strides clear of Liverpool’s back line, one on one with Adrian. It should have been the equaliser, instead he fired straight at the goalkeeper and the moment passed.
Then VAR pulled the rug from beneath Chelsea’s feet.
THIS was their best spell of the half and it culminated in a move that saw Mason Mount cross from the left, Fabinho unable to clear as he hoped and Cesar Azpilicueta pounce to force the ball over the line after a scramble. Stamford Bridge was delirious but away in Stockley Park there was a man whose job it is to find ways to eradicate goals. He succeeded.
Mount’s foot was in an offside position when the ball was played. Just. It wasn’t quite as imperceptible as the goal Tottenham had scrapped at Leicester but it was not the sort of infringement that would have caused a second’s discussion a year ago had play simply continued. It wasn’t even within the last two phases of play. Still there it was. Offside. Certainly, by the letter of a law now being deployed so miserably it is making the days of catastrophic human error appear a golden age of reason.
So in that second the momentum shifted and minutes later that shift told. Azpilicueta fouled Georginio Wijnaldum. Well, that was the judgement of referee Michael Oliver.
Wijnaldum lobbed the ball and Azpilicueta jumped attempting to head it. Wijnaldum ran into him and bounced off. Hey ho.
Anyway, free-kick and VAR isn’t interested in ruling on marginal calls. Just fractions of centimetres elsewhere.
Liverpool then took an excellent free- kick, cleverly worked by Andrew Robertson. Chelsea defended it poorly and gave Roberto Firmino a free header.
Chelsea lost Emerson to injury after 15 minutes, then Andreas Christensen after 43, which did not help, and Kurt Zouma nearly put through his own net in the second half.
Chelsea have conceded 13 league goals this season, which is more than any club bar Norwich and Watford — even Wolves in 19th.
‘We have to start converting these performances to points,’ said Lampard, citing precisely the art Liverpool have mastered.
CHELSEA (4-2-3-1): Kepa 7; Azpilicueta 7, Christensen 5.5 (Zouma 42min, 6), Tomori 7.5, Emerson (Alonso 15, 6); Kante 8, Jorginho 6.5; Mount 6, Kovacic 6.5, Willian 6; Abraham 6 (Batshuayi 77). Subs not used: Barkley, Pedro, Caballero, Pulisic.
Scorer: Kante 71. Booked: Tomori, Kovacic, Alonso. LIVERPOOL (4-3-3): Adrian 7.5; ALEXANDER-ARNOLD 8.5, Matip 8, Van Dijk 8, Robertson 7; Wijnaldum 6.5, Fabinho 6.5, Henderson 6.5 (Lallana 84); Salah 6 (Gomez 90), Firmino 7, Mane 5.5 (Milner 71, 6). Subs not used: Oxlade-Chamberlain, Shaqiri, Brewster, Kelleher. Scorers: Alexander-Arnold 14, Firmino 30. Booked: Fabinho, Alexander-Arnold, Milner. Referee: Michael Oliver. Attendance: 40,638.