Friday 23 January 2015

Weren't We Good

Before the game against Chelsea I was worried.  We are getting better, players and formations are developing but Chelsea are good, they have strength in every position, experienced players at the top of their game all over the pitch and on top of that they are bloody horrible, nasty, cynical, devious players with the the most horrible, devious, cynical, nasty bastard in charge, I bloody well hate Chelsea and everything they stand for.  But it has to be said that they win football games and that's why I was worried, I simply couldn't see a way we could get the result, surely they would be able to find a way through our defence, find the weaknesses in our formation, expose our wing backs, surely they would dominate the midfield and I couldn't see how we could get the goals against their defence and the quality Matic.

From the start we more than matched them, for me with none of the above coming to pass.  I'm hearing what people are saying, that early on Chelsea despite not threatening were controlling the game, not for me, in fact the opposite, they were struggling to control the game, the pressure we were putting on was starting to produce errors.  They were not in control, they were on the edge, they couldn't create, neither could we, but we were certainly not controlled.

Next came the penalty for Chelsea, again I'm hearing most people say that this was a penalty, again I disagree, for me Hazard dived into Can, if you watch the replays he is on his way down before the contact, not just fractionally but definitely on his way down, another example of cynical, nasty Chelsea football that has at least been halve earned by the managers comments in the media over the last week or two.

From the goal onwards Liverpool dominated playing some exciting quality football that deserved far more than the single goal, we should of but more importantly could of won.  What we did do is show that our players are equally as good as those of Chelsea and proved to people like me that had concerns before the game that we were wrong, we can control teams as good as Chelsea, we can compete at this level.  Chelsea never looked like scoring again, in fact only managed one more shot during the entire game, whilst we peppered their goal with efforts, teams the quality of Chelsea don't get hammered, 
they don't give up loads of clear cut chances, ever, but we did well and on another day would have got a couple more goals, a fabulous display.

At half time pundits criticised Can for his performance, again I disagree, I have already covered the penalty, and apart from that I thought he put in a very good performance against some of the world's best talent, as did our other defenders.  Lucas was superb and Henderson once again showed that he has the character to be the captain of our club, I loved watching him put Costa in his place, but for me the most pleasing aspect was seeing partnerships starting to develop all over the field, down the left Sakho and Moreno are looking good, as are Can and Markovic on the other wing so much so that we now longer have to concentrate every one of our attacks down the left, Henderson and Lucas dominated midfield and look at the quality of the names they were up against, Sterling and Coutinho also looked to be enjoying playing together more, regularly waltzing through the Chelsea team with today only the final ball missing.

The crowd also appeared to be back on form, quality support with good humour, that's how it's done Chelsea.  Hopefully all of this has given us the confidence to move on, it has me, I now can't wait for the second leg, we have a chance, I can now see how we get the win, well done Liverpool.

@lfclumo 

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