Chelsea 1 Liverpool 0 - CL SF 1st Leg (Apr 25 2007)

[TLW]

Chelsea 1 LIVERPOOL 0

Report by Mark Ingram at Stamford Bridge

Scorer(s) - Half Time - 1-0 Venue - Stamford Bridge Date - Wed 25 Apr 2007 Star Man - Pepe Reina

 

 

 

 

 

If there was any doubt about it before the game then there’s certainly none anymore. The status of 'Underdogs' lies heavily on the shoulders of Liverpool FC this morning after a thoroughly average display at Stamford Bridge last night.

It was good to finally get the game underway after the tedious monotony of Mourinho’s supposed mind games that we’ve had to endure all week. Unfortunately results count, so if Chelsea go through you’ll probably hear plenty of weak minded fools banging on about how he deflects attention from his players and he sows seeds of doubt into opposition managers heads.

That’s all just a load of old rubbish. Benitez couldn’t give a toss about what Mourinho says and nothing he came out with all week has made the slightest difference to team selection or tactics. He’s a whittering old fool and he’ll probably find something to whinge about this morning despite his side holding a major advantage going into the second leg.

The stadium had a lively atmosphere about it, both sets of fans clearly right up for the game, but the difference between that and a European night at Anfield is enormous and it’s looking like it’s going to have to be the telling factor if we’re going to turn this tie around.

The first obvious point of note was that Finnan wasn’t going to play a part in the game, which meant a juggling around of defenders and wingers which meant Zenden came into the side took his place on the left, Riise at full back and Arbeloa at right back. Mascherano and Alonso made up the centre midfield which meant Gerrard was to play on the right with Kuyt and Bellamy up front.

The game got underway and it wasn’t long before the home side began to assert their dominance. Reina was forced into a magnificent reaction save from Elijah Wood’s fat older brother who must have thought he’d scored, just like he must have thought he scored two years ago down the same end when he blazed over.

It was beginning to become obvious that their danger man for a change was going to be Drogba. He was making a right old menace of himself and strangely, he seemed to be having most of his battles against Agger when you’d have thought Carra would have made that his prime role for the evening.

Agger was finding the job very difficult and was letting Drogba get the better of him more often than not. He almost scored with a header, and almost put Cole in for a relatively easy chance before he did finally make a telling pass after turning Agger inside out and laying it square to Cole who finished first time. To be honest they deserved the lead, the Liverpool defence was looking very shaky and Agger was looking like the wrong man for the Drogba job.

Arbeloa has to take some of the blame for the goal for not properly covering the ground Cole had run into, and Carragher was left doing the splits in no mans land.

As the half wore on, we were fairly lucky not to go two behind. Fat Frodo sent one of his deflection seeking free kicks just wide of the upright after Drogba had done his Alan Shearer trick on Agger backing into him then falling over like a sack of slack shite.

He really does wind me up does Drogba. I’ll hold my hands up and say that I respect what he does as a player, he’s strong, got a decent shot on him and uses his body very intelligently, but he’s more irritating than an inflamed haemorrhoid on a hot day.

It’s the way he suddenly acts all injured then suddenly recovers again and the way he sticks his opinion in to every decision made by the ref as if he’s some kind of UN ambassador. Wait a minute – he is some kind of UN ambassador. Either way his opinions may be good enough for the UN, but they need to be reined in on the football pitch.

Merk blew for half time and to be honest I felt a bit relieved. The reds had created absolutely nothing down the other end, Cech might as well have been selling hot dogs from a stall beside the goal for the amount of work he hade done. It was time for one of Rafa’s half time team talks and possibly a substitution or two to get us back in the game.

The travelling fans showed little signs of this though, they were singing their hearts out as if we were three nil up. I wasn’t sat with them unfortunately. The only ticket I could get was slap bang in the middle of home fan hell, surrounded by thousands of ‘hilarious’ Chelsea fans and their oh so amusing little songs. They’re particularly proud of ‘You’ll Never Get a Job’ which, correct me if I’m wrong, is about as original as an Elvis impersonator and is sung by any set of fans you come across. Oh how they laughed after singing that one, what an amusing bunch of people.

The half time team talk looked to have made a difference as the beginning of the second half showed a bit of an improvement attacking-wise. Riise hit one from miles away, Kuyt saw a tame header loop over and Gerrard came closest with a stinging left foot shoot which was superbly saved by Cech. Unfortunately that was where the excitement ended.

Crouch and Pennant came on but did little to effect the game. Crouch gets such a hard time in Europe by refs who refuse to accept his size and continuously blow up when he goes for a header. Last night was no different and the big fella was left hugely frustrated by Merk’s decisions all evening.

Arbeloa then had a bit of Henchoz moment as he swung at fresh air, and then slapped the ball with his hand, and fortunately got away with it. In truth, he had a horrible game which was very disappointing as I thought he’d make a few people open their eyes in this game and see what a decent player he is.

Unfortunately he didn’t do much right all game and could have cost us another free kick in a very dangerous position, or a penalty if Chelsea were in fact allowed to have penalties. Thankfully though they’re not allowed penalties because the whole world is against them and it’s all just so unfair according to the special needs one.

As the second half wore on it became more and more apparent that there was to be no away goal. No one was playing very well, Gerrard was arguably our best outfield player but his influence was restricted by his position out right. I think he was given eight minutes at the end in the centre to see if he could change things.

Eight paltry minutes – great. It’ll be one of the deciding factors on next week’s game as soon as the formation is announced. If Gerrard is out on the right then we’re as good as dead, we need his qualities in the middle if we’re going to have a chance at turning it around.

Reina pulled off another blinding save off the chubby hobbit once again and to be honest when the game came to a close I was enormously relieved because they looked by far the most likely to score and if they had done so it would have been as good as curtains for our season.

As it stands we’ve still got them within arms reach, but we’re not in a strong position. Any goal they score in the remaining ninety minutes will count double so if they do we’ll need three and I bet it’ll be three second half goals required to save us yet again.

I was gutted that we played so poorly, it wasn’t as if Chelsea made us look bad because they weren’t much better, it just looked like a cagey, hesitant display that has got us nowhere and left us with it all to do on Tuesday. Reina gets Star Man for effectively keeping us in the tie and otherwise doing nothing wrong, he never had a chance with the goal. The only outfield player that did alright was Gerrard but it was far from a dominating midfield performance that we should be seeing from him.

Huge team changes are required for the weekend to keep everyone fresh for Tuesday where it’ll be the last throw of the dice for Benitez and his men. I wouldn’t say it’s a mountain to climb but it’s certainly a steep old hill. For crying out loud Rafa, stick Gerrard in the middle and stick Carragher on Drogba.

Essien will be back for them and Chelsea fans will naturally think they are through already, but if they do then they are forgetting who they are playing against and where they will be playing. The crowd will, of course, be an immense factor and the players will not be finishing their season without a fight. Come on boys, you can do it.


Team: Reina; Arbeloa, Carragher, Agger, Riise; Gerrard, Mascherano, Alonso (Pennant), Zenden; Bellamy (Crouch), Kuyt: