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Liverpool 1 Chelsea 1 (Aug 28 2021)


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Dave Usher

 

We should have won that but in the end we didn’t deserve to. I’m still trying to process how I feel about it two days later. Well, I know how I feel. I’m disappointed and frustrated. I’m just not sure how disappointed I should be. Being massively frustrated is justified though, for a variety of reasons. 

 

The draw was definitely a fair outcome as Chelsea were fairly comfortable in the second half all things considered. A minute or two before half time if you’d offered me a draw I may well have taken it as we were a goal down and not really looking too great. 

 

Then everything was turned on its head with the pen and sending off and because of that it’s hard not to think this was a missed opportunity. It’s a better point for Chelsea than it is for us but it’s not that bad a point for us either. Not losing the big games is vital. If you can win them then all the better.

 

Chelsea are a good side and them going down to ten men didn’t really help us much on reflection. Don’t get me wrong, if you offer me that scenario again I’m taking it 100 times out of 100. I think it made it much easier for us to not lose the game but also made it more difficult to win.

 

Going down to ten greatly reduced any attacking threat Chelsea might pose but it made it a whole lot tougher for us to break them down because their focus became almost entirely about defending, and they’re very good at it. I don’t think any other team in the league would have coped as well as they did in that situation against us. When you have a load of high quality players who are well drilled and focusing solely on not conceding, it’s really fucking hard to break down.

 

When it was 11 v 11 it was a more even game but because of that it could have gone either way. We’re usually at our most dangerous when things gets a bit wild so we’ll never know how the second half had played out if Reece James had been allowed to stay on the pitch. We’d started brilliantly but went behind against the run of play with a goal that I’d say was pretty much impossible to stop. 

 

A six foot three lad runs to the near post and flicks on a ball that is delivered right on the money, then that flick fortuitously loops right over everyone into the far top corner. How do you stop that? You can’t. 

 

That was a kick in the nuts as we were well on top until then. Elliott had started superbly and was inches away from his fist goal with a rasping low drive that went just past the post with the keeper scrambling. Hendo missed a glorious chance when he was picked out by a phenomenal ball by Trent. He tried to side foot it on the run with his left foot and got it horribly wrong.

 

It was really interesting that Harvey was given the nod to start and that as a result of his inclusion Hendo was on the left of the three. It’s a massive vote of confidence in the kid because Klopp could easily have gone with Keita or Thiago and then kept Hendo in his more natural spot. The significance of this is huge I think. Elliott might actually be number four in the pecking order for midfield spots now. I say four rather than three because I expect Thiago to come in soon once he’s back up to full fitness, but Elliott being selected to start against as tough an opponent as we’ll face this season definitely tells us a lot about how Klopp views him.

 

 

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Agree that it's hard to know what to make of this result and performance. It did feel like we should have caused 10 men a lot more trouble than we did, but as you say there's no better team than Chelsea in this situation. It's not even just a current thing under Tuchel. They seem to have had managers and players who have thrived in such situations for years. I remember them being down to 10 men protecting a 1 goal lead for the whole of the second half against Barcelona's vintage team and Barcelona just looking completely bereft of any ideas of how to break them down and just having cross after cross easily cut out. It will be a lot more concerning if that failure to break teams down, or even looking like doing so, becomes a common problem against lesser teams. 

 

I've loved the first few weeks of the season but this was definitely a bit of a downer. Not just our second half performance but Taylor's as well. I'd almost forgotten how infuriating the refs consistently were during our bad run last season. Not always in terms of big decisions (although there were plenty of those as well) but just the accumulation of numerous small decisions going against us that made it impossible to ever build any momentum and eventually just seemed to wear our players down. I'd hoped it would be different this year with fans back in the ground, but that might not be the case on the basis of this game. Those stats on the foul counts are ridiculous. Klopp would no doubt get lambasted by the moronic British sports media if he complained about Taylor's performance in this game, particularly in light of the game's biggest decision going in our favour, but it would be great if he just mentioned those stats in the press conference before the next game we have with Taylor in charge. That sort of bias needs greater scrutiny.

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I though James deserved a red because there was a scooping motion with his arm to push the ball out.  Might have been instinctive but it denied a goal. Just awarding the goal is insufficient because there needs to be a disincentive otherwise the defender may as well just cheat and hope it's not spotted. 

 

Whenever we have a go at refs either during or after the match they seem to double-down on us and then the media are queuing up to bash us. We all know  Chelsea should be charged over the incident but I doubt it will happen and Taylor is either a disgrace or a cheat (or both) for trying to reward their behaviour.  

 

This isn't the first time we've dominated but failed to break down an organised defence when the forwards aren't clicking. If we're going to try and get to the by-line to cut back as another regular option then we'd probably be best switching Mane and Salah for extended periods during a game. 

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The most apposite comment for me is the view that the sending off eroded both sides' best chance of winning. 11 v 11 for the second half and I think we win although we could've lost.

 

MOTD was irritating; like Tuchel, they said Taylor only looked at a still image of the handball incident despite their own footage showing the ref approaching the screen with the incident playing.

 

Fair result in the end; we didn't manage to get behind them at all in the second half.

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10 minutes ago, Barnesey said:

The most apposite comment for me is the view that the sending off eroded both sides' best chance of winning. 11 v 11 for the second half and I think we win although we could've lost.

 

MOTD was irritating; like Tuchel, they said Taylor only looked at a still image of the handball incident despite their own footage showing the ref approaching the screen with the incident playing.

 

Fair result in the end; we didn't manage to get behind them at all in the second half.

The ref gets an audio feed we don't , I assume he was told how blatant it was before he even got to the screen.

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17 minutes ago, sir roger said:

The ref gets an audio feed we don't , I assume he was told how blatant it was before he even got to the screen.

I dont watch or listen to the fucking BBC any more, they all just talk fucking shite.

 

It's beyond the wit of those pundits to consider VAR told Taylor he'd missed a clear pen and also deliberate handball which would be a red card. It seems to me Taylor was told to see if he thought the handball warranted a red card not, was it a pen, was it a red card.

 

The funny thing is, chelsea fans have got a petition going with allegedly 70,000 signatures calling for Taylor not to ref another one of their games. Apparently, it's been 'liked' by Alonso.

 

Maybe they havent realised Taylor literally gave them everything in the 2nd half?

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The behaviour of the Chelsea players was pathetic especially in the second half, Azpilacueta going down screaming holding his face when the replay clearly shows there was no contact at all with his face, Alonso blatantly throwing himself to the ground right in front of the linesman yet the linesman still falls for it. How many times did they hound the referee? I lost count. Their behaviour was completed glossed over on Match of the day yet I bet the next time Salah goes to ground easily it will be mentioned.

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29 minutes ago, RedHeadedRed said:

The behaviour of the Chelsea players was pathetic especially in the second half, Azpilacueta going down screaming holding his face when the replay clearly shows there was no contact at all with his face, Alonso blatantly throwing himself to the ground right in front of the linesman yet the linesman still falls for it. How many times did they hound the referee? I lost count. Their behaviour was completed glossed over on Match of the day yet I bet the next time Salah goes to ground easily it will be mentioned.

Yet right after the game Redknapp and Neville were praising the refs about how they’re letting a lot of challenges go and players don’t feign injury now or simulate a foul as apparently “they get laughed at”….Not sure who by as I wasn’t fucking laughing watching their antics second half

 

You do wonder if they really do watch the same game.

 

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There should indeed be a penalty goal like they do have in Rugby Union.


you’re a scary bastard, Dave, or at least you used to be. I’m pretty happy I did not mess around with you when you failed to come up with the fanzine issue. Ouf !

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I'm glad that Dave mentioned the Main Stand side linesman as he was doing my head in as well.  Couldn't spot the blatant foul on Trent in the second half from a few yards but could see a slight deflection on the opposite side of the pitch from 30 yards or so away.

 

You could see why the Chelsea players carried on the way they did and it had the desired effect.  The three minutes injury time (not that we would have scored even if he had added on thirty three) summed it up.  They spent so long time wasting in the second half yet none of it was added on.

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40 minutes ago, Stickman said:

Yet right after the game Redknapp and Neville were praising the refs about how they’re letting a lot of challenges go and players don’t feign injury now or simulate a foul as apparently “they get laughed at”….Not sure who by as I wasn’t fucking laughing watching their antics second half

 

You do wonder if they really do watch the same game.

 

 

They just trot out whatever narrative is being peddled, regardless of whether it fits what happened or not.

 

They get paid to analyse this shit. How are they not picking up on the fact we did not get a single free-kick in the second half??

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38 minutes ago, Arnaud said:

There should indeed be a penalty goal like they do have in Rugby Union.


you’re a scary bastard, Dave, or at least you used to be. I’m pretty happy I did not mess around with you when you failed to come up with the fanzine issue. Ouf !

 

I could never shout at you Arnaud. You're one of my favourite people on this earth.

 

We actually gave you a shout out on the pod last week, but it didn't make the final cut because we had some sound problems on the bit leading up to it and it wouldn't have made sense so I had to edit it out. 

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16 minutes ago, Gpo1004 said:

I'm glad that Dave mentioned the Main Stand side linesman as he was doing my head in as well.  Couldn't spot the blatant foul on Trent in the second half from a few yards but could see a slight deflection on the opposite side of the pitch from 30 yards or so away.

 

You could see why the Chelsea players carried on the way they did and it had the desired effect.  The three minutes injury time (not that we would have scored even if he had added on thirty three) summed it up.  They spent so long time wasting in the second half yet none of it was added on.

 

I need to see that foul on Trent again. I'm going to put the full match on LFCTV and try to find it.

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The three refeering performances so far has made me realise nothing has changed from last season, we are for some reason getting the absolute shitty end of decisions and I don't even know if I can be bothered with the rest of the season. I can't be arsed with the stress of shouting at referees and their mad, bent decisions. 

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