It was a tough afternoon for Liverpool as they were frustrated by Chelsea’s counter attacking and tireless game-play. Captain Steven Gerrard’s slipping that led to Demba Ba scoring the opener can prove to be the costliest slip for the title aspirations of the club from Merseyside. Former hero Fernando Torres’ long and unchallenged run with the ball setting up Willian for an easy second just added insult to injury as Chelsea rounded off a memorable afternoon with a 0-2 victory.
Here are three lessons we learnt from the match:
3. Jose Mourinho’s tactics rarely fail against the top teams
Nine out of ten times, Chelsea fans can rest assured about their team’s performance against stronger opposition. Jose Mourinho and his team have grown to love playing against the top teams and hitting them on the counter seems to be a very effective ploy for the Blues. Now Mourinho has led Chelsea to keep a clean sheet at Old Trafford, The Etihad, The Emirates and Anfield. This victory would be another counter-attacking master class from Jose Mourinho which he surprisingly created using a second string line-up.
2. Chelsea’s reserves have some talented youngsters
Chelsea’s reserves have some really talented young prospects and Tomas Kalas’ performance justified this statement. It is a well known fact that Chelsea spend a fortune in accumulating young talents and investing heavily. Having finally got an opportunity to see one of the youngsters in full action, we weren’t disappointed with Kalas. We also saw youngsters Nathan Ake and Lewis Baker on the bench, and we hope to watch more of these young prospects in the future.
1. Liverpool need to buckle up their psyche
For a team that has been in a tremendous run of form having accumulated a win streak of 11 games, it should not have been so tough for them to break the second string Chelsea squad. Plus they needed only a draw out of this match to ensure that their title aspirations remain in their own hands, which is why it is unfathomable why they were playing a split-centre back strategy which meant Steven Gerrard was the last defender when he slipped.
Liverpool, under Brendan Rodgers have been a very attack minded unit and it is not always easy for such a team to come out and play content football when you have some of the brightest attackers on the field. Hence this match was supposed to be one of the toughest tests for the team’s psyche and they failed as Chelsea came out successfully by frustrating Liverpool.