I’m not taking this one too well. It’s not that we lost a semi final that bothers me so much. It’s not that we went out despite outplaying the best team in the country over two legs. It’s not even that it went to extra time or that we were so close. It’s because it’s THEM.
I can’t even put into words how much I fucking hate Chelsea. It’s unhealthy, one day it might even cause me to keel over because I absolutely despise them with every fibre of my being, and losing to them hurts more than losing to anyone else. Yes, anyone. Why? Because they’re complete and utter thundercunts to a man. They showed it once again over the two legs in this tie.
It’s just depressing that we keep losing to them now. 05-07 seems an awful long time ago and they seem to get the better of us any time it really matters these days. There’s that sick feeling you sometimes have after a defeat, especially in a big game, but you can magnify that by ten when it’s against these as there’s usually some flashpoint in the game that brings all the hatred I have for them bubbling over. This was no exception, although it wasn’t either of the Costa stamps that bothered me so much, it was that scruffy cunt hamming it up on the touchline in the officials ear for the whole game. He even got caught on camera harassing the ref in the tunnel at half time.
Apparently there was a bit of altercation between the two benches as well when Mourinho was asking if our staff could see all these decisions Chelsea weren’t getting. Pascoe offered him his glasses as he was clearly talking shite and it escalated from there. Pascoe never worked for Mourinho at Chelsea so obviously doesn't give a fuck about upsetting him. Good for him.
It’s a bit meathead'ish of me I know, but Brendan not hating Mourinho makes me like him less. It shouldn't do but I can’t help it, I want Rodgers to be able to see what everyone else does, that the man is just a complete fucking turd. I don’t care what history they’ve got or if he feels he owes him something, this cunt slated Suarez last year for diving when he’d done nothing of the sort. Now he’s having a pop at Brendan for pointing out the snide stamps by Costa. Even worse, he laughably tried to drag Skrtel into it ("I could talk about Skrtel but I won't" Er, yeah because outside of the occasional shirt pull what the fuck are you going to say about him, numbnuts?).
Seriously Brendan, forget about what he may or may not have done for you in the past, he’s a despicable twat who doesn’t give a fuck about you or anybody else. You should have cut all ties with him the second he started talking smack about Suarez last year.
I’m getting sidetracked here though, as I tend to do once I start talking about these fucking scumbags. Leaving them aside and just focussing on ourselves, I’ve got seriously mixed emotions about it. Over the two games we played very well and the effort and commitment from the players was first class and great to see. We played good football, we defended resolutely and with composure and we refused to be bullied. I loved all that.
All that bodes well moving forward, we look like a good team again. Some will take solace in that, I can’t though. Not yet anyway. It’s kind of like after the loss in April I suppose, although clearly this one doesn’t hurt quite as much as that. It took me a few days before I could look on the bright side, and I expect it will be the same now. A decent win over West Ham at the weekend will help to put this behind me but right now I’m just miserable about it, regardless of how we played.
I’m not buying into the “we deserved to go through” train of thought either. We didn’t deserve to go through because none of this side can fucking shoot. It’s pitiful to have only scored once given the amount of chances we had over both games. How many of Courtois’ saves were anything out of the ordinary? The one from Lallana was, the rest were ones you’d expect most keepers to make. Rodgers said he’s the reason Chelsea went through. I’d say we were the reason Chelsea went through, because our finishing was appalling.
In some respects you have to expect that. It’s quite simple really, if you take away the two players who scored half of our goals last season and don’t replace them properly then this is what happens. Less goalscorers mean less goals. Less goals means worse results. Had either of Sturridge or Suarez been available for these two games we’d be in the final. I’d probably argue that outside of putting the ball in the net we’re now playing as well as if not better than we were last season.
The fact is though we have Sterling leading the line and he’s at best a 15 goal a season player. He’s doing what he did last year but the difference is he’s now our main source of goals instead of the third option. Watching this I found myself thinking “If Sterling was just a little bit better than he is then we’d be well ahead here”. It’s unfair on him really, he’s pretty damn good just the way he is but against the very top opposition we need him to be more than that because we no longer have three players doing it, it's just him and he was very much the junior partner in terms of goalscoring.
We played so well in that first half and got into a lot of promising situations where Sterling got free into space. It was similar to the Bolton game though, he just didn’t do enough with the situations he found himself in. Sometimes it was due to him being isolated and lacking support, but there was one occasion when he could have rolled it square to an unmarked Gerrard but instead went himself and lost it. Against a team like Chelsea you’ve just got to make more of it when in that position. I don't want to dwell on it though as the expectation on him isn't fair and it's hardly his fault. Overall he's doing a hell of a job all things considered.
This was one hell of a game, I could see that even if I couldn’t enjoy it myself because of the unbearable tension. How the hell did I cope with those semi finals in 2005 and 2007? I guess I was younger then, but I’m not sure I’d be able to sit through those now as this one was horrible, I contemplated walking away from the TV on at least three occasions. Against any other side it wouldn’t have even entered my head, but that's the effect these have on me. It's not a football match, it feels personal.
The referee was appalling but at least he was equally shit for both sides, I’ll happily take that given some of the shaftings we’ve had by officials against Chelsea down the years. Yes, Chelsea should have had a pen when Skrtel upended Costa, but considering the twat shouldn’t have even been on the field after stamping on Emre Can I’d say they have little cause for complaint. Not that that will stop them of course. Poor hard done to Chelsea and those refereeing campaigns, eh?
The pace of the game was incredible though, especially the first half. Chelsea didn’t sit back as they often do, both teams just went after each other and it was relentless. It slowed a little after the break as we seemed to tire a bit and they got on top, but most of the chances they had were from our own mistakes.
Case in point, Sakho’s horrific pass goes straight to Costa and Lucas ends up having to give away a foul and take a booking to prevent them going through. Skrtel made a challenge on Costa who then stamped on him as he landed. You can see on the replay that he could have avoided it, and that he had his eyes firmly downwards to make sure he landed on Skrtel. Accidental though, apparently. Tell it to the judge, Jose.
Charlie Adam was banned for three games last May for stamping on Olivier Giroud, even though he wasn’t even looking at the player when he landed on him. Only Adam knows if he meant that, but he got banned anyway. Given that Costa did it twice in the same game, and it was clearly intentional both times, they should ban the twat for six games. Won’t happen, obviously. I mean Mourinho accused referees of waging a campaign against Chelsea and was fined 25k. What is that, a day’s wages? Less maybe? Fucking joke.
Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked again there. Sakho injured himself in making that mistake or in trying to recover from it, I don’t know. He had to go off and Glen Johnson came on. No problem with that, if it’s a choice of Johnson or Lovren I’m going with the marginally less shit option all day. Johnson was brutal for ten minutes or so after coming on when he looked like he was running in tar, but he settled down after that and wasn’t too bad. Sakho’s been great recently but he was dodgy as fuck in this one, which will reaffirm all those doubts many have about him and his ‘always has a mistake in him’ reputation.
Chelsea were the better side in that second half and Mignolet had to make two brilliant stops to deny Costa. One was a good save with his leg after he adjusted himself to keep out a deflected shot, and the other was a fantastic tackle as Costa tried to dribble round him. “Like Bobby Moore on Pele” as Carra described it on Twitter.
Mignolet did his reputation a lot of good in this game and he’s looked quite confident recently. Good for him, he’s shown a lot of character to come back from what he has. Penalty scare aside, Skrtel was brilliant too, as was Emre Can who is looking more and more of a star by the week now.
The game passed Markovic by a little though and it was so surprise that he was subbed. It was a surprise that it was Balotelli brought on though. Firstly, why was he even on the bench ahead of Borini given Rodgers’ comments after Bolton? Bizarre. And why was he brought on instead of Lallana?
It messed up the entire shape of the team as Henderson went to wing back, Gerrard dropped into midfield with Lucas (and none of us want to see that pairing) and Sterling came deeper. We never looked the same after that really, despite the brilliant promptings and twinkle toes of Coutinho who was going past people as though they weren’t there.
The goal never really looked like coming though and Chelsea were baying for red cards for Lucas and Henderson any time they committed a foul as they’d both been booked for minor indiscretions. To Michael Oliver’s credit he didn’t buckle under that pressure when other refs would have. He could easily have booked Hendo for a handball but didn’t, which was fair enough because the yellow card he’d given him in the first half was stupidly harsh. Ditto Lucas. Just because it’s a foul doesn’t mean it’s a booking, especially when you’ve got that arl man faced twat running around stamping on people without punishment.
Ever since the first leg I’d been bullish about our chances of winning this one. I knew we’d play well, I knew we’d compete and have a go at them and I thought we’d have enough to get the goal or two we’d need. That went out the window after 90 minutes though, I felt after normal time that we’d ran our race and there was nothing left. I just couldn’t see us winning it in extra time, especially when Balotelli fucking ballooned one over the bar from 18 yards just after the restart. That was his chance to justify Rodgers faith in him and he blew it, the useless fuck.
A minute later he passed the ball straight to Hazard who was fouled by Lucas, and from the free-kick an unmarked Ivanovic headed past a helpless Mignolet. Mourinho didn’t even see it as he was too busy berating 4th official Phil Dowd because Oliver didn’t send Lucas off. Cunt.
It was awful defending from the set-piece though and to the untrained eye it looked like it was Balotelli’s fault, as he was stood next to the knuckle dragging Serb as the free-kick came in. That was my initial thought but I’ll defer to Carragher’s judgement on that one, he said it was a zonal issue and they were all in the wrong area and needed to drop back three yards.
It doesn’t alter the fact that Balotelli’s introduction fucked us right over though. Brendan needs to accept he’s a lost cause and move on. I thought he had done actually, but just when I thought he was out, he put him back in.
We still should have taken the game to penalties but Hendo missed a glorious chance to equalise. I think at that moment we all knew it was probably over, even though there was still another period of extra time to be played.
Tempers continued to flare and Costa and Gerrard had to be separated after the Chelsea scumbag got in Stevie's face. At the point I just wanted Gerrard to stick one on him, as he's got nothing to lose now really has he? We play them again late in the season, if we're not still in the FA Cup and there's no risk of missing a final through suspension I'd love to see Stevie just plant him. No messing about with pushing and shoving and that, just land one square on his jaw and walk off the field without even waiting for the red card. Honestly, short of lifting the FA Cup or Europa League trophy, I can't think of a better way for him to go out than that.
Rodgers final throw of the dice was Lambert, which seemed pretty pointless to me as I’d have gone with Lallana. Lambert coming on meant Balotelli was then marooned out on the left wing, making the decision to bring him on even more stupid than it was at the time.
Brendan has done a great job of setting the team up in recent weeks but his substitutions in this game were fucking abject. That’s probably why Mourinho was so full of praise for them actually, as they helped Chelsea no end. End the Balotelli experiment now. Borini might be bang average but at least you know what you’re going to get from him. Balotelli is getting games on the basis that because he has talent he might one day actually do something useful. It’s boom or bust, except there’s been no boom.
The game ended with Hazard dropping to the floor and screaming in pain after minimal contact from Johnson, who just looked at him with complete disdain. A fitting end really, they'd been pulling that shit constantly in both games and Hazard is almost as repulsive as Costa in his own way. They all are though, bunch of scumbags. Had to laugh when Fabregas went off after being clattered by Terry though. "Mongo kick Cesc. Mongo sorry".
This was our best chance to win a trophy this year and we came up just short. It’s frustrating as hell because we know we can hang with anyone now, and if we just had someone who could put the ball in the net then we’d be very dangerous. Clearly we aren’t buying anyone (which I find pretty disgraceful really, if not surprising), so Sturridge, I guess it’s over to you. Let’s hope your cheese string muscles can remain intact until May, otherwise it will be a long four months.
Team: Mignolet; Can, Skrtel, Sakho (Johnson); Markovic (Balotelli), Henderson, Lucas, Moreno (Lambert); Gerrard, Coutinho; Sterling:
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