EDEN’S STRIKE OF GENIUS
Hazard hits wondergoal to clinch it for Chelsea
IT WAS, ultimately, the perfect performance and the perfect strategy for this competition. Begin with an understrength side, stay in the game and then send out the cavalry to do what they do better than most players in the world.
This game was goalless when Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri introduced Eden Hazard just before the hour. Before the Belgian had even touched the ball Chelsea were a goal down to a Daniel Sturridge scissor kick and for a while it seemed as though Chelsea would go out.
Liverpool were the better side for long periods of the second half and there were few signs of lingering life from a team that had dominated the first 30 minutes.
But after Chelsea full back Emerson equalised from a set-piece with 11 minutes to go, Hazard stepped up to score a goal of breathtaking quality to change the shape of the evening and send his team in to the fourth round.
Sturridge’s goal was memorable but the winner was something else, the type of thrust-kill-withdraw manoeuvre that happened so quickly many travelling Chelsea fans will not have appreciated it fully until seeing it replayed on their phones on the way home.
Playing a one-two with Cesar Azpilicueta on the far touchline — the first pass being a nutmeg through the legs of Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino — Hazard received the return ball to turn, beat both Naby Keita and Albert Moreno twice each and drive a raking shot across Simon Mignolet and in to the far corner with his right foot.
There was so much to admire in terms of the technique, speed and timing of the goal but what perhaps will stay in the memory is the sheer purpose with which Hazard drove forwards on route to winning the game all on his own.
This is what the truly great players do when they are confident. This was not, on the face of it, a particularly big night on Hazard’s 2018 calendar when you consider what has gone before — such as an FA Cup final and a World Cup semi-final. But Hazard sensed an opportunity to settle this game when he took receipt of that ball from his team-mate. The Belgian’s brain clicked straight into attack mode and by the time he was engulfed by the Chelsea fans behind the goal, Liverpool were on their way out of a competition only six minutes after seeming to have a foot in the next stage.
Liverpool followers mayay feel their team were unluckyy to lose.
They were the better r team by a distance for 50 minutes in the middle portion of the game and might have scored more than the one goal during that time.
But Chelsea came to o Anfield with intent and nd were on the top for the open-opening 25 minutes and the final 10. They will feel that was enough to see them home.
Liverpool’s problem was that they didn’t wake up quickly enough. There were seven or eight first-team starters missing from Jurgen Klopp’s team and for far too long the German’s style of play was nonowhere to be seen. In a Klopp team everything thi starts and finishes at a hard work. Without that t they are neutered and for too long at a subdued Anfield the likes of Sturridge, Xherdan Shaqiri and summer s signing Fabinho inh did not provide the intensityinte and hustle Liverpool pool need n to prosper. Eventually, after about 30 minutes, it arrived but by then Chelsea could have been ahead. Alvaro Morata was denied by Mignolet after a superb chipped pass by Cesc Fabregas and then again by the Liverpool goalkeeper after turning Joel Matip at the near post. Had Chelsea been ahead they would have deserved it. Sarri chose an enterprising team.
It was also missing many players who will face Liverpool in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge on Saturday but those who were on duty played with a purpose and an optimism that reflected well on the Chelsea coach.
Nevertheless, once Liverpool found something of their real identity either side of half time, it felt as though Chelsea’s chance had come and gone.
Keita brought a plunging save from Willy Caballero as half time neared and then Sadio Mane did likewise with a header from a Shaqiri cross. And when Sturridge missed an open goal 35 seconds after the restart and Caballero denied Mane with his foot after a Ross Barkley error, the volume and atmosphere in the stadium rose just enough to prepare for Liverpool’s goal in the 59th minute.
Sturridge’s scissor kick was superb and one for the photographers at the Kop end. As Keita’s shot was parried upwards by Caballero, the Liverpool striker dispatched it wonderfully into the centre of the goal.
There was much to admire in the work of James Milner also, as it was he who hassled Fabregas and Azpilicueta into giving up possession when they seemed to have time over by the far corner flag.
It was a goal that had been
coming and it appeared to set Liverpool up for the ninth straight win of their season.
But they couldn’t kill the game and when Barkley headed a 78th free-kick down at the near post, Mignolet parried and Chelsea leftback Emerson reacted first to prod the ball over the line from six yards.
The equaliser sucked the air from the stadium and, it must be said, the life from Liverpool. A penalty shoot-out seemed likely and Chelsea would have probably taken that at the outset.
But great players don’t wait, they act — and with one scampering run and one slash of his gilded right foot, Hazard did for Liverpool.