Chelsea 0 Liverpool 0 - Prem (Feb 10 2008)

[TLW]

Chelsea 0 LIVERPOOL 0

Report by Mark Ingram at Stamford Bridge

Scorer(s) – Half Time - 0-0 Venue - Stamford Bridge Date - Sunday 10 February 2008 Star Man – Steven Gerrard

 

 

 

 

 

 

What an utter waste of time that was. If I’d wanted to watch something boring and pointless with loads of idiot cockneys spouting shite then I’d have saved my money and watched the Eastenders Omnibus on Sunday instead of that. Chelsea websites will probably be coming out with all sorts of guff about Liverpool setting a stall out for a draw, but let’s be honest here, did Chelsea look in anyway ambitious or threatening?

Past meetings between the two sides have all been very similar, and this one epitomised them all. It was ridiculously cagey from start to finish, and as dull as a dinner date with Avram Grant.

Benitez picked an unusually predictable line up (as my impressive Fantasy Rafa score of eight might suggest). Babel on the wing, Crouch and Kuyt up front, Skrtel alongside Carra, with the experience of Finnan and Riise preferred at full back. Gerrard was given licence to roam with the security of Mascherano behind him and Lucas always close by to cover. He didn’t actually do a great deal of roaming, but had he wanted to then I guess he’d have been protected by them two.

Kuyt spent a lot of time dropping into midfield too so there wasn’t a great deal of space available, especially when you consider Alex and Potato Head could defend quite high knowing full well they weren’t going to get skinned by our two forwards.

The first half was dominated by Liverpool possession and some very patient play. There were lots of back passes back to Reina as the back four tried to somehow suck Chelsea out of their own half, but they weren’t having any of it, and just sat there waiting to defend. I was expecting Chelsea to have a go at us, considering our recent form and the capitulation by the mancs at home to City an hour earlier giving them a chance to gain ground, but they just weren’t interested and showed very little ambition all afternoon.

Our only chances in the first half fell to Crouch, or ‘freak’ as our friends from Fulham Broadway like to call him. Nice one lads, I bet his dad loves that whilst he’s sat amongst you all in his blue shirt. The first was a left footed shot from just inside of the box after a knock down from Babel and then a weak header after a great bit of play from Gerrard who’s cross curled just behind his run on goal. That was pretty much it. They weren’t great chances and they never looked like actually going in but that was all we had to get excited about all day. It really was that painful.

Chelsea had a penalty shout after Joe Cole did his usual bit of cheating (or should I say ‘simulation’ as no one in football seems to have the balls to address diving. I loved Rooney’s yellow card the other day, though – he’s not quite learned the art as well as his mate, but give him credit, the lad’s trying). Riley, however, is clearly saving all his stupid penalty decisions for Old Trafford so in this instance the home team were not the beneficiaries.

The second half showed little more in terms of memorable incidents, Ballack nearly scored with a looping volley, but again, it wasn’t a cast iron chance. Riley got knocked off his feet by a Mascherano pass which was easily the best thing that happened the whole game.

To be honest I can’t remember much else, it was as bad a game as I’ve ever seen and I was barely paying attention by the end of it. Then all of a sudden with about a minute left on the clock Gerrard put Kuyt through but he took the worst touch humanly possible and the chance went begging. Typical of the way he’s playing at the moment and, yes, half of me feels sorry for him but please, Dirk, get your confidence back quick because your massively bad at the moment and it’s become embarrassing to watch.

Positives to take from it are that Carragher and Skrtel looked fairly assured together in the middle but I can’t be the only one praying for Agger to return, he’s by far the better footballer and Carra seems to like him a bit more than Skrtel. To be honest it normally looks like Carra doesn’t like anyone on the football field for all the shouting he does, but this seems particularly apparent with Skrtel. The poor lad was getting a right old earful throughout the game. Even more of an earful than most people near Carra get. Between them they kept Anelka at bay which is no mean feat, and this must have gone someway to giving Skrtel some confidence after his decidedly dodgy start to life at Anfield.

Gerrard probably deserves star man, he was impressive without doing anything amazing. He usually doesn’t play that well against these, but he had a decent afternoon and almost created a few things for the big man.

All in all, it was an awful game and I apologise for the dreariness of this report, but to be honest there was very little to talk about. I can’t even be bothered to harp on about how much I detest Chelsea, because if I’m honest they’ve become infinitely less hateable since Mourinho was given the sack.

It’s yet another draw which really doesn’t help us much and makes Everton look that bit more worrying with only 13 games left of the season. I still fancy us for the Champions league spot but it’s going to get a lot more complicated with two cup competitions still to bear in mind and Rafa’s eye for a tinker.

Massively looking forward to the Inter Milan games, hopefully that can give our season a lift.


Team: Reina; Finnan, Skrtel, Carragher, Riise; Mascherano, Lucas, Gerrard; Kuyt, Crouch, Babel (Pennant):