I’m always the first one to get fed up whenever Liverpool get lucky and win matches they don’t deserve to. This has occurred on more than one occasion leaving me seething wih post-Birmingham, Gallas-like petulance. Yesterday, despite the Alonso goal being slightly deflected off Chelsea’s Bosingwa, Liverpool’s win had nothing to do with the fact that Lady Luck has taken a major fancy to them. Yes, yes you heard me right, Liverpool actually played well against Chelsea yesterday.
By playing well I don’t mean they played raunchy football. There’s nothing sexy about running at the Chelsea players like rabid dogs on steroids and nipping at their heels faster than you can say BOSINGWA! But Liverpool had a sound defensive plan and they stuck to it. No space for Chelsea players meant that they couldn’t play the ball on the ground and resorted to long balls in the box which wasn’t what Scholari had in mind,
“They lost the confidence to touch the ball and were afraid of not changing the result. This is not the football we play normally. We need to try to play on the ground, not high balls, because I don’t have big strikers. I said to them ‘Look, try to keep on playing’ but they didn’t listen.”
[Alonso and co celebrating their 2nd win against a fellow "Big 4"]
So the Kops copped a win and ended Chelsea’s unbeaten run to go clear 3-points at the top. They have every reason to be brimming with confidence and be buoyed by the result after defeating two of the Big 4 teams. But unlike Benitez’s belief,
“We can go to any stadium and win games. Today, against a very good team, a very offensive team, we showed we were thinking about winning,”
they can’t just go to any stadium and win games. Benitez’s tactics work best against teams that play open, attacking games but against teams with stolid defending, there is a very high chance that Liverpool might struggle and indeed they have against Boro, Aston Villa, Stoke and Wigan. So how they react to teams like Hull and Fulham in the coming games will be very telling.
Mascherano agrees just as much,
“We know that beating Chelsea isn’t enough. We need to keep going. It was a great day for us but it’s too early to talk about the title.”
Speaking of Masherano, he really needs to keep a lid on it. Seriously, the dude has been sent off so many times for yapping and remonstrating too much I’d be nervous if I was his team-mate. Yesterday, he was at it again! He tried to talk the ref into giving Ashley Cole a red card for a challenge. As much as I can’t stand Cashley Cole myself, Mascherano was really lucky to get off with just a yellow card for dissent. What were you even thinking Argentine bro? Your team were doing great and you should just shut your verbal tango up and get on with the job well done.
[Mascherano needs to put a lid on it]
With that said, congrats to Liverpool for getting a positive result from what was potentially a difficult game. But like man-of-the-match, Carragher reiterated, there’s no need to get too carried away. Remember Arsenal last season? They were leading the table all the way until towards the end. A broken leg can change the course of a season. So Liverpool…erm, break a leg?
Filed under: Football
