Demba Ba capitalised on a slip by Steven Gerrard as Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield to hit the Reds' title hopes. The rest of the game followed a similar pattern, and the symmetry was confirmed when another club legend, Iago Aspas, gave the ball up from a corner, handing it on a plate to Willian who - well, actually, a few minutes later and from a seperate break - confirmed the result with a tap-in from a Fernando Torres assist. Beating Chelsea is never going to be as easy as a dance around the maypole but José Mourinho has threatened to make it that incy-wincy bit more straightforward. The focus was on the ensuing Champions League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid, he reiterated, before going off on a tirade about insufficient rest time and his enforced use of such benchwarmers as Mark Schwarzer, Tomas Kalas, ​Salah (!!!) Azpilicueta and Cole matched them and Schwarzer, at the age of 41, showed there is not a lot that fazes him. "Beautiful … this kid, Liverpool, Anfield, just beautiful.". Maybe next season we can race.". @ianmccourt Mourinho celebrated like a crazy old homeless man that had has shopping cart stolen. You cannot challenge for the league title without spending a sum similar to the GDP of the Federated States of Micronesia, they said; and yet here are Liverpool on top of the table, having spent less than most. ", 90 mins Liverpool have more four more minutes to try find a goal. 47 mins Suárez is clipped from behind with Ivanovic on the half-way line. he doesn't shout at the Liverpool forward. Min odds, bet, and payment method exclusions apply. "They had 10 behind the ball from the first minute," Rodgers said. Chelsea are struggling to get out of their own half or even string a few passes together to ease the pressure on themselves. " ", Chelsea's Improvement Under Frank Lampard Was Clear to See Against Man Utd, Minute Media 2019 90min © All rights reserved, Sergio Romero Seeking Early Release From Man Utd Contract, Liverpool 'Open Negotiations' With Schalke for £20m-Rated Ozan Kabak, Filip Stevanovic: Things to Know About the Serbian Forward. Which leads us to some predictions.The heart says a good match with plenty of goals and plenty of talking points; the head says a quiet one so the pace of the typing can keep up with the pace of the game; the form guide says Liverpool – in fact Chelsea were the last side to beat them in the league; the people who know better say Chelsea. That will worry fans of Liverpool, as will his ability to set up his team in the type of solid formation that can be harder to penetrate than 10,000 forcefields. If anyone lives near him, maybe pop round and check he's ok?" See Tom Jenkins's best images from the game, clamped his teeth into Branislav Ivanovic's arm, Reginald D Hunter did the same, targeting Suárez for the opening joke of his now-infamous routine, he has suggested that he may play a weaker team, the unexpected win for Sunderland last week, if anyone in a red shirt is going to help them encroach upon that success then it will surely be Luis Suárez, Chelsea were the last side to beat them in the league. I mean, seriously, from the Mohamed Salah factor to the Fernando Torres factor, to a timeless tale of protege vs master, to Gerrard's proclamations, to Mourinho's illness, to the slip, to the upcoming clash this weekend whereupon the two clubs will meet in the same gameweek as Man City-Crystal Palace - the very same schedule as you-know-when - you couldn't write this. 58 mins Gerrard tries to pick out Flanagan's run to the corner of the box but Salah heads it clear for a corner. @ianmccourt mourihno looks like he's about to do some painting. Oscar? Time limits and T&Cs apply. Venue Anfield (Liverpool) Attendance 44698. Including Salah, Torres, Mourinho & more. He skipped into the Chelsea box and his speed took him goalwards. Yeah, real weak. But to know for sure who will be the one to come out on top come the end of this game, then you will have to watch this space. However, he does not strut about the pitch like a model on a Milan catwalk, he chases, he harries, he presses, he fights and he works his feet to the bone. E. Can 9' (assist by R. Sterling) 1 - 0. It is played to Johnson on the edge of the box. The tension was somehow elevated from that City clash, the emotion heightened... but the team's attacking might diminished. Looked a threat on the break and worked his socks off all day. Only 30 seconds in, his long-range shot was deflected wide by John Terry but the Chelsea captain's centre-back partner Cahill was not as fortunate as in the eighth minute when Can let fly from distance again and his shot ricocheted off the England defender to leave goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois stranded. Premier League: Goals from Demba Ba and Willian see Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-0, Ancelotti: New Everton spirit key to success. I'm overtired, I've got a horrible week in work ahead, and I'm scared Gerrard is going to go all 2008ish, try too hard to be superman, and shoot from anywhere. Eighth. ​Aside from 'AGUUUUUEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO', there is no more iconic Premier League title run-in this century than the 2013/14 season. Min deposit £5 and 1x settled bet requirement to release Bet Credits. On. One on one with Mignolet, he did not miss. In the post-game, Rodgers meekly suggested his side had held control of the game, but this was never true. So, to the game itself, one which, upon revisiting, is like watching the first 20 minutes of a horror film when you know what's coming. Naturally, it being Mourinho, and in this case, probably peak Mourinho, this was not all he said. Not by a long shot. 83 mins A corner to Liverpool after some neat work from Sterling on the left. Those teams in full then are as follows: Liverpool: Mignolet, Johnson, Flanagan, Skrtel, Sakho, Gerrard, Allen, Lucas, Coutinho, Sterling, Suárez. Half-time 1 - 1 Full-time 1 - 2. There is no sense that these fans are getting worried or nervous just yet. But not article over. With plenty of players in the the box, Aspas plays it short to a Willian and immediately earns the wrath of every single Liverpool fan around the world. 26 mins Sterling hits a long, cross-field diagonal towards Suárez, at the corner of the box on the right. He is robbed of possession and Liverpool try to get the ball down the other end of the pitch. When it was all finished, with Steven Gerrard ruminating on a mistake that threatens to stick to his conscience like superglue, Brendan Rodgers could not disguise his disdain. One day Hill walked through the park and got into it with a boxer with a missing tooth. For others this might be a great season: second in the league, a cup final, a European semi. Spot. Liverpool had no choice but to take more risks in the second half but they lacked their usual creativity and dynamism. While a first goal in three matches was celebrated with unbridled joy at Anfield most in the crowd understood one would not be enough considering their defensive problems and Chelsea's considerable attacking prowess led by Costa. However that has only tended to happen in Chelsea's games against the smaller sides, the sides who set up shop in the same way that Chelsea do against the top sides and hit them on the counter. "It's different in every sense.". Don Hutchison wonders if signing Harry Kane can fix Manchester City's problems. The likes of Steven Gerrard, Raheem Sterling and - somewhat surprisingly considering Kolo Toure's performance at the Bernabeu - centre-back Dejan Lovren were recalled with Can the only alteration to the team which lost at Newcastle last weekend. Or maybe 'The Greatest Showman 2', considering Mourinho's repeated use of the word 'circus' to describe Merseyside on that Sunday, and his emphasis that his players would not be the 'clowns'. 2 mins Chelsea play some early keep ball in the Liverpool half but give the ball away to Sterling near his own box. Wide on the right, he makes his first run of the game and is only stopped when he arrives at the Chelsea end line. In fact, he dominated the pre-game discussion so heavily, with such pettiness and mundanity, that the Reds' aspirations were relegated to sign-offs rather than ledes. It was the first time in a decade, since he took the reigns at Porto as a young gun desperate to make a big noise, that he endured a term without a trophy (bar the Spanish Super Cup). OK so the aforementioned Cahill is there, as are Torres and Willian, but the rest lack experience of these sort of games and are not exactly the lot you want with spades in hand when you need digging out of a hole, are they? As for Liverpool, Sturridge's hamtring-ouch! They pretended they could not hear the whistle and when they had a throw-in or free-kick nobody was ever in a rush to take it. Just like Ned Stark in Season One of 'GoT', Rodgers was too clouded by naivety and his beholdenness to ideology - to true attacking football - to see the trap Mourinho, the true Cersei Lannister of football, had laid for him. 62 mins Liverpool build from the back and soon work the ball out to the left and then to the right and Johnson, via Coutinho.