A little more credit wouldn't go amiss though!!
Chelsea lose plot
Oliver Kay
Liverpool 2 Chelsea 0
Healthy tension, Peter Kenyon, the Chelsea chief executive, called it. If it is truly beneficial for a club’s manager to be at odds with the owner and his assorted cronies on the staff, not to mention two of his most talented players, Chelsea are, indeed, in rude health. Positively blooming, in fact.
The alternative conclusion as they departed Anfield on Saturday afternoon was that José Mourinho and Chelsea are in crisis, their heaven-sent marriage heading for bitter divorce and their title challenge seemingly on the brink of collapse after the frailties of their once-mighty squad and the follies of their summer transfer policy were further exposed by a resurgent Liverpool team.
It was also an afternoon that taught us a little more about Mourinho. He spoke sensibly afterwards — graciously and, under the circumstances of his relationship with Roman Abramovich, diplomatically — but much of his talk was alarmingly defeatist. Likewise, he showed his compassionate side by embracing most of his players as they left the pitch, but only after unnecessarily and pointedly ignoring Andriy Shevchenko, clearly the source of so much of that “healthy tension”.
There were gasps of disbelief last month when Mourinho said that Shevchenko was not one of nine “untouchables” in his squad. These days, the former European Footballer of the Year seems untouchable only in the sense associated with the Indian caste system, such is the contempt with which he appears to be held by the brooding Mourinho. “There are different players,” Mourinho said afterwards, “and the personality of each one is more adapted to the difficult moments, to the fight and to the effort we need from everybody. Some other personalities are weaker, not so strong. That’s why I try to be surrounded by the strong mentalities.”
Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, had said something similar about the need for strong characters on Friday, citing Jamie Carragher as the epitome of the spirit he looks for. Carragher was exemplary on Saturday as Liverpool produced a performance of Chelsea-like ruthlessness. By contrast, Chelsea, without the spine of their team — John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho and Claude Makelele — were made to look, well, spineless, which is probably the type of adjective Mourinho would use to describe Shevchenko and others, perhaps including Arjen Robben, who was given the cold shoulder for hobbling off with a foot injury.
It was a game that vindicated Mourinho’s belief that his squad are in severe need of reinforcement, as he described Terry’s back problem as “never-ending” and expressed fears that Joe Cole’s foot injury might keep him out for the rest of the season. The effect on the defence is well documented — it was so bad here that even Khalid Boulahrouz was missed, never mind Terry — but what of a forward line in which Didier Drogba has been the only reliable, let alone inspirational, performer this season? Does last summer’s squad-trimming still seem like a good idea? Is Mourinho missing Robert Huth and Carlton Cole, let alone William Gallas, Damien Duff, Eidur Gudjohnsen or Hernán Crespo, who all moved on?
The back four on Saturday consisted of an average midfield player (Gérémi) at right back, a decent right back (Paulo Ferreira) and an outstanding midfield player (Michael Essien) at centre half and a top-class but out-of-sorts left back (Ashley Cole) in his correct position. The late withdrawal of Carvalho, with a fever, left Mourinho without a single six-footer in his back four. Just how bad must Nuno Morais be?
What unfolded in the fourth minute was hardly surprising therefore, his makeshift defence cowering as Crouch flicked the ball to Kuyt, who supplied a composed finish. Jermaine Pennant’s spectacular strike 14 minutes later was slightly more surprising, but it was no more than his team deserved. For Liverpool, it was a glorious afternoon, but for Chelsea it was not far short of an embarrassment.
Embarrassing was the word as Drogba and the highly disappointing Michael Ballack fluffed a free-kick routine with 20 minutes left, to hilarity from the Anfield crowd. “Bye-bye, Mourinho,” the home supporters chanted, that “healthy tension” growing by the minute.
Some players will not fight hard, says Mourinho
Manager's refusal to shake hands with Shevchenko is symptomatic of a broader unhappiness with his team
Dominic Fifield at Anfield
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
The sense of crisis gripping Chelsea intensified last night after Jose Mourinho appeared to question whether some of his players have the stomach for the fight ahead in the wake of their meek surrender at Liverpool.
Mourinho pointedly failed to acknowledge his substitute Andriy Shevchenko at the final whistle on Saturday, the manager not even offering the Ukrainian striker a glance before shaking hands with every other member of his beaten side as they departed the turf. "There are players who adapt to difficult moments, to the fight and to the effort we need from everybody," said the Portuguese. "Some other personalities are weaker, are not so strong. That is why I try to be surrounded by the strong mentalities."
That suggested a level of dissatisfaction, not only with Shevchenko - who has come to be seen as Roman Abramovich's signing rather than Mourinho's and featured for only 17 minutes here - but potentially with those other key players who failed to perform at Anfield.
Arjen Robben was anonymous in the early exchanges before limping away after 21 minutes, ripping his shirt off in frustration as he disappeared down the tunnel. The German international midfielder Michael Ballack contributed little throughout, a player of established pedigree who earns £130,000 a week unable to stamp any authority on the occasion.
Mourinho's public comments echo his sentiments after the recent draw with Fulham at Stamford Bridge, a result that prompted the manager to state that Shevchenko, Salomon Kalou and Shaun Wright-Phillips were "not performing" at present. While Chelsea suffered only their second defeat here in all competitions since early November, a sequence stretching back 19 matches, those players' loss of form and apparent questionable desire have contributed to the team having won only once in their last five league games to hand Manchester United the advantage at the top.
The visiting manager also bemoaned the absence of his only previously fit specialist centre-half Ricardo Carvalho, who fell ill on the eve of the match to render the team horribly vulnerable. "We'd done our work all week building the defensive line around Ricardo," said Mourinho. "When I heard he couldn't play, I saw it in the faces of my players and it was easy to understand what was going on in their souls. It's difficult to do it after that."
Asked why he had been unable to sign a replacement defender during the transfer window, Mourinho replied: "For some reason it hasn't happened. I'm never allowed to do what I want to do! I'm the manager, I'm not the owner, the chief executive or the chairman, I'm just the manager. I give my opinions to the club and the club tries, if they want to, to give me what I think is good for the team. The market is open for another 10 days but it has been open for 20 days and if we didn't already get a player then I don't see why we should get one now."
"I'm not criticising anybody. At the end of December, I gave my opinion as always and I was saying: 'In my opinion, we need two players - a central defender, because we are in this position, and an attacking player. Joe Cole is out for the rest of the season, and also because Robben is injured a lot and, when he's injured, it's never for a small period. It's always for a long time.
"So in my opinion we needed something. I gave my opinion, and the club sometimes tries to do the best they can. But I am the first to agree that, even if we need players, you can't go into this crazy game and pay what people want. So you must be pragmatic, understand the reality of where we are."
Chelsea's reluctance to spend heavily in the winter window may be born of the fact that the last players recruited at the same stage in the last two seasons - Jiri Jarosik from CSKA Moscow in 2005 and Maniche from Dynamo Moscow in 2006 - failed to impress in their time at Stamford Bridge and had moved on within six months.
Instead, Mourinho is counting down the days until John Terry and Khalid Boulahrouz return from back and knee injuries respectively, with Carvalho expected to have recovered from his illness in time to feature at Stamford Bridge against Wycombe Wanderers in the Carling Cup tomorrow.
Liverpool 2 Chelsea 0: Benitez's master plan reveals Chelsea's lack of hunger in title fight
By Andy Hunter
Published: 22 January 2007
By the time Ricardo Carvalho placed a thermometer under his tongue on Saturday morning Rafael Benitez was behind his desk at Liverpool's training complex to finalise the plot that would procure a first League victory over Jose Mourinho and expose the true impact of internal division on the reigning Premiership champions.
Had he an inkling that this would be the day when the once indomitable spirit of Chelsea would plummet with inverse proportion to the mercury in their defender's mouth, the Liverpool manager may have spared himself the early dart from the family home across the Mersey.
Anfield has featured prominently in Chelsea's richest chapter, providing Roman Abramovich with his first taste of the Premiership in August 2003, Mourinho with confidence in the club's first League title for 50 years on New Year's Day 2005 and his first encounter with Champions' League deflation three months later.
Today it basks as the setting for, if not the meekest performance of the Mourinho era, then certainly the display when their belief and hunger for the fight ebbed lower than at any point since the Portuguese manager arrived to take charge at Stamford Bridge and turned his squad to face the world.
A first League defeat in 13 fixtures is no confirmation of freefall, nor can a team without their three central defenders become a model of resilience overnight, but there was a fragility about Chelsea on Saturday that mocked declarations that, contrary to reports, Stamford Bridge was still driving in the same direction.
"When I heard Ricardo couldn't play," Mourinho said of losing Carvalho to a virus before the match, "I saw in the faces of my players and it was easy to understand what was going on in their souls." Surrender? With the honourable exceptions of the returned goalkeeper Petr Cech, Michael Essien and Didier Drogba, that is how it appeared.
Only a month ago, and less than a mile from Anfield, the champions - without Cech and again without John Terry - retrieved a deficit against Everton through sheer force of will. One week later they chiselled another late win at Wigan. Now, after the draws and the disquiet, an unwillingness to accept responsibility for mistakes has dripped from Abramovich to Mourinho and down on to the players, with no one illustrating that point better than Michael Ballack.
When Chelsea craved example from their few remaining men of status the Germany captain delivered a performance so lacking in purpose, energy and interest as to be indebted to the Ukrainian striker Andrei Shevchenko for again masquerading as a diversion. Shevchenko remained on the sidelines for 73 minutes while the visitors flustered against Liverpool's back-line, but it was Ballack - having paid for his former club Chemnitz to re-hire a sacked physiotherapist last week - who donated nothing to Chelsea.
While the midfielder strolled through the motions - a little run here, a stretch there, but nothing too strenuous - Paulo Ferreira filled the central defensive void as though plucked from a career in accountancy rather than as a £13.2m right-back asked to step 20 yards inside.
The Portuguese international panicked the moment a straightforward pass from Geremi arrived at his feet in the opening seconds, and the accident did not wait long to happen when he stumbled in pursuit of a Peter Crouch header and allowed Dirk Kuyt to half-volley inside Cech in only the fourth minute.
Mourinho's injury list validates his pleas for defensive reinforcement, although Abramovich was not present to witness this copper-bottomed argument due to business commitments in Russia, but it is also what a manager conjures with depleted resources that determines his claim to a special reputation. As Anfield was quick to point out, Benitez has already delivered in that respect.
"Mourinho's a good manager with experience, with character," insisted his rival for second place. "When you have these problems you must show you are a good manager. I think he will. He's doing a very good job. We should be happy in our jobs because we both love football. Some people have more problems than us."
This was not the glowing endorsement it may seem from Benitez, however. He added: "Some people always say they didn't have this player or that player. In our first season, we had something like 10 injuries and we were losing games, but there were no excuses. We kept going."
And Liverpool won the Champions' League. How Mourinho would savour a repeat and such an emphatic riposte to those who seek to undermine him now.
The Liverpool manager was at Melwood by "8.30am, analysing the small details", and the instruction to bombard Chelsea's weakness with quick, diagonal balls would have produced a more emphatic victory but for misses by John Arne Riise, Kuyt and Crouch, who also failed to convert after the Norwegian almost broke the crossbar from 40 yards. Not that Anfield was in fear of its own wastefulness. Jermaine Pennant chose a fine time and a fabulous way to score his first Liverpool goal when he volleyed over Cech from 25 yards and Chelsea's response induced only laughter from the home terraces as Drogba found the roof of the Kop with his only chance and Ballack allowed a dangerous short free-kick to squirm between his legs.
"If we maintain this form we'll be closer to Manchester United as well as Chelsea," warned Benitez. At least Mourinho is becoming accustomed to glancing over his shoulder.
Goals: Kuyt (4) 1-0; Pennant (18) 2-0.
Liverpool (4-4-2): Reina; Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Aurelio; Pennant, Alonso, Gerrard, Riise; Kuyt (Gonzalez, 90), Crouch (Bellamy, 85). Substitutes not used: Dudek (gk), Hyypia, Fowler.
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Geremi, Ferreira, Essien, Cole; Mikel (Shevchenko, 73); Kalou, Ballack, Lampard, Robben (Wright-Phillips, 21); Drogba. Substitutes not used: Hilario (gk), Morais, Diarra.
Referee: R Styles (Hampshire).
Booked: Chelsea Ferreira.
Man of the match: Kuyt.
Attendance: 44,245.
(saved the best till last!)
Liverpool (2) 2 Chelsea (0) 0
You are asking me to abdicate? What were you before me? Nothing. I made you. If there is one thing I despise it's ingratitude – Rod Steiger as Napoleon to his marshals in Waterloo.
Mourinho
Unlucky 13: Jose Mourinho failed to beat Rafael Benitez in their 13th meeting
That is the golden rule for special ones everywhere. They are eventually humbled by people less special but more numerous than themselves. "Brought down by pygmies," as Norman Tebbit remarked when he watched Margaret Thatcher leave Downing Street for the last time. But at Stamford Bridge, the pygmies hold the cheque-book.
As he woke in the team hotel on Saturday morning learning that Ricardo Carvalho's illness meant he would be without any specialised central defenders at Anfield, it was possible for Jose Mourinho to convince himself that defeat, if and when it arrived, might not be catastrophic. And when he returned from a day out with his family, rather than watch yesterday's events at the Emirates Stadium, the gap was still six points.
But Liverpool's triumph was so crushing, so humiliatingly one-sided – that the distance between themselves and Manchester United appears much greater. This was Benitez's third competitive victory as Liverpool manager over Mourinho in 12 attempts. The first cost Chelsea the Champions League, the second the FA Cup and this might yet cost the Premiership.
Had Chelsea stuck to their grand strategy of having two players for every position, the kind of defensive crisis that allowed Dirk Kuyt, Peter Crouch and Jermaine Pennant to wreak havoc before 20 minutes were up would probably not have occurred.
However, like Real Madrid at the time of the galacticos, Chelsea were seduced into buying players they did not really need – Andrei Shevchenko, Michael Ballack and Ashley Cole. Less photogenic but more necessary footballers such as William Gallas and Damien Duff were allowed to leave and the consequences have been the same.
When he managed Real Madrid in David Beckham's first season, Carlos Queiroz would glance along his bench and be aghast at the lack of defensive cover. Repeatedly he asked Real to buy a centre-half and a holding midfielder to replace Claude Makelele, who tellingly was absent for Chelsea on Saturday. The richest club in the world repeatedly refused and Real Madrid ended the season an exhausted, incoherent shambles, hunted down by an infinitely less glamorous but more balanced Valencia side managed by Benitez.
Mourinho claimed that Benitez would have known for weeks that he would use the height and power of Crouch and Kuyt against a flimsy back four. The Liverpool manager replied that he took the decision at the club's training ground at around 9.30 on the morning of the game, just as Carvalho was reporting unwell. Whatever the truth, Chelsea's frailties were exposed by a flick from Crouch which Kuyt took past Paulo Ferreira and buried in Petr Cech's net. The clock showed three minutes and 21 seconds.
When Jermaine Pennant hammered in a second, more spectacular drive, Mourinho would have known the game was up. Liverpool had last conceded a Premiership goal at Anfield on Oct 28th. Nevertheless, Benitez's reaction was telling. As everyone around him flung their arms to the sky, he turned away and shrugged his shoulders. There was still ice in his veins.
There was nothing in Ballack's. Two-down and hemmed in by an overwhelmingly more confident side, this was the moment when the captain of Germany might have stepped forward. His response was a non-performance, empty of desire, effort or even interest. Mentally, he appears never to have left his home by the Bavarian lakes. It was something Mourinho seemed to notice. "Some personalities are weaker," he said. "That is why I try to surround myself with strong mentalities."
Ferreira's hopelessly amateurish back-pass to concede a corner and the dreadful mix up between Didier Drogba and Ballack as Chelsea squandered a rare free-kick were examples of this mental weakness. Michael Essien, employed out of position as a centre-half, was just about the only one of Mourinho's players to display the necessary fight. However, had John Arne Riise's spectacular drive not crashed against Cech's crossbar and Kuyt not missed in front of the Kop from six yards, the scoreline would have reflected the realities of a match Liverpool won without four first-team midfielders.
Anfield was where Abramovich's Russian revolution began with a 2-1 win in August 2003 and Anfield three-and-a-half years later was where it came most spectacularly apart. Only the owner and his manager know whether it is beyond repair.
Stat of the week
This was the 13th meeting between these teams in less than three years but the FIRST time Liverpool have beaten Chelsea, in that period, in the Premiership. In the previous five League meetings, Chelsea had won all five, scoring nine goals and conceding just one. Liverpool's only previous successes over Chelsea in that period have come in this season's Community Shield, the FA Cup last season and the Champions League, in May 2005.
John Ley
Talking point
When Jermaine Pennant's shot crashed past Petr Cech, there was an audible gasp around Anfield, not just because of the quality of the goal but the identity of the goal-scorer.
This was a player who has resisted attempts from managers as diverse in their approach as Arsene Wenger, Steve Bruce and Peter Reid to improve him, finally showing a glimpse of an enormous talent that even at the relatively young age of 23 looked as if it was wasting away. His previous goal, for Birmingham against Portsmouth, was a year ago.
"I have been telling him to score more goals," his manager, Rafael Benitez, said. "He needs to be more selfish; sometimes he tries to assist or cross instead."
Pennant may still go the way of Bruno Cheyrou, the last Liverpool player to score a Premiership winner against Chelsea; the goal just a brief upward blip on a relentless downward curve.
However, what was significant with Benitez complaining about the limited funds he is granted by the Liverpool board, is that his most recent signings –Pennant, Dirk Kuyt and Daniel Agger – all impressed. The men on whom Jose Mourinho and Roman Abramovich had lavished transfer fees and salaries in the summer – Ashley Cole, John Obi Mikel, Salomon Kalou, Andrei Shevchenko and especially Michael Ballack – performed miserably when it absolutely mattered.
Match details
Liverpool (4-4-2): Reina; Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Aurelio; Pennant, Gerrard, Alonso, Riise; Crouch (Bellamy 85), Kuyt (Gonzalez 90).
Subs: Dudek (g), Hyypia, Fowler.
Chelsea (4-3-3): Cech; Geremi, Essien, Ferreira, Cole; Ballack, Obi Mikel (Shevchenko 74), Lampard; Kalou, Drogba, Robben (Wright-Phillips 21).
Subs: Hilario (g), Morais, Diarra.
Booked: Ferreira.
Man of the match: John Arne Riise (Liverpool).
Referee: R Styles (Hampshire).
Att: 44,245.
Chelsea lose plot
Oliver Kay
Liverpool 2 Chelsea 0
Healthy tension, Peter Kenyon, the Chelsea chief executive, called it. If it is truly beneficial for a club’s manager to be at odds with the owner and his assorted cronies on the staff, not to mention two of his most talented players, Chelsea are, indeed, in rude health. Positively blooming, in fact.
The alternative conclusion as they departed Anfield on Saturday afternoon was that José Mourinho and Chelsea are in crisis, their heaven-sent marriage heading for bitter divorce and their title challenge seemingly on the brink of collapse after the frailties of their once-mighty squad and the follies of their summer transfer policy were further exposed by a resurgent Liverpool team.
It was also an afternoon that taught us a little more about Mourinho. He spoke sensibly afterwards — graciously and, under the circumstances of his relationship with Roman Abramovich, diplomatically — but much of his talk was alarmingly defeatist. Likewise, he showed his compassionate side by embracing most of his players as they left the pitch, but only after unnecessarily and pointedly ignoring Andriy Shevchenko, clearly the source of so much of that “healthy tension”.
There were gasps of disbelief last month when Mourinho said that Shevchenko was not one of nine “untouchables” in his squad. These days, the former European Footballer of the Year seems untouchable only in the sense associated with the Indian caste system, such is the contempt with which he appears to be held by the brooding Mourinho. “There are different players,” Mourinho said afterwards, “and the personality of each one is more adapted to the difficult moments, to the fight and to the effort we need from everybody. Some other personalities are weaker, not so strong. That’s why I try to be surrounded by the strong mentalities.”
Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, had said something similar about the need for strong characters on Friday, citing Jamie Carragher as the epitome of the spirit he looks for. Carragher was exemplary on Saturday as Liverpool produced a performance of Chelsea-like ruthlessness. By contrast, Chelsea, without the spine of their team — John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho and Claude Makelele — were made to look, well, spineless, which is probably the type of adjective Mourinho would use to describe Shevchenko and others, perhaps including Arjen Robben, who was given the cold shoulder for hobbling off with a foot injury.
It was a game that vindicated Mourinho’s belief that his squad are in severe need of reinforcement, as he described Terry’s back problem as “never-ending” and expressed fears that Joe Cole’s foot injury might keep him out for the rest of the season. The effect on the defence is well documented — it was so bad here that even Khalid Boulahrouz was missed, never mind Terry — but what of a forward line in which Didier Drogba has been the only reliable, let alone inspirational, performer this season? Does last summer’s squad-trimming still seem like a good idea? Is Mourinho missing Robert Huth and Carlton Cole, let alone William Gallas, Damien Duff, Eidur Gudjohnsen or Hernán Crespo, who all moved on?
The back four on Saturday consisted of an average midfield player (Gérémi) at right back, a decent right back (Paulo Ferreira) and an outstanding midfield player (Michael Essien) at centre half and a top-class but out-of-sorts left back (Ashley Cole) in his correct position. The late withdrawal of Carvalho, with a fever, left Mourinho without a single six-footer in his back four. Just how bad must Nuno Morais be?
What unfolded in the fourth minute was hardly surprising therefore, his makeshift defence cowering as Crouch flicked the ball to Kuyt, who supplied a composed finish. Jermaine Pennant’s spectacular strike 14 minutes later was slightly more surprising, but it was no more than his team deserved. For Liverpool, it was a glorious afternoon, but for Chelsea it was not far short of an embarrassment.
Embarrassing was the word as Drogba and the highly disappointing Michael Ballack fluffed a free-kick routine with 20 minutes left, to hilarity from the Anfield crowd. “Bye-bye, Mourinho,” the home supporters chanted, that “healthy tension” growing by the minute.
Some players will not fight hard, says Mourinho
Manager's refusal to shake hands with Shevchenko is symptomatic of a broader unhappiness with his team
Dominic Fifield at Anfield
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
The sense of crisis gripping Chelsea intensified last night after Jose Mourinho appeared to question whether some of his players have the stomach for the fight ahead in the wake of their meek surrender at Liverpool.
Mourinho pointedly failed to acknowledge his substitute Andriy Shevchenko at the final whistle on Saturday, the manager not even offering the Ukrainian striker a glance before shaking hands with every other member of his beaten side as they departed the turf. "There are players who adapt to difficult moments, to the fight and to the effort we need from everybody," said the Portuguese. "Some other personalities are weaker, are not so strong. That is why I try to be surrounded by the strong mentalities."
That suggested a level of dissatisfaction, not only with Shevchenko - who has come to be seen as Roman Abramovich's signing rather than Mourinho's and featured for only 17 minutes here - but potentially with those other key players who failed to perform at Anfield.
Arjen Robben was anonymous in the early exchanges before limping away after 21 minutes, ripping his shirt off in frustration as he disappeared down the tunnel. The German international midfielder Michael Ballack contributed little throughout, a player of established pedigree who earns £130,000 a week unable to stamp any authority on the occasion.
Mourinho's public comments echo his sentiments after the recent draw with Fulham at Stamford Bridge, a result that prompted the manager to state that Shevchenko, Salomon Kalou and Shaun Wright-Phillips were "not performing" at present. While Chelsea suffered only their second defeat here in all competitions since early November, a sequence stretching back 19 matches, those players' loss of form and apparent questionable desire have contributed to the team having won only once in their last five league games to hand Manchester United the advantage at the top.
The visiting manager also bemoaned the absence of his only previously fit specialist centre-half Ricardo Carvalho, who fell ill on the eve of the match to render the team horribly vulnerable. "We'd done our work all week building the defensive line around Ricardo," said Mourinho. "When I heard he couldn't play, I saw it in the faces of my players and it was easy to understand what was going on in their souls. It's difficult to do it after that."
Asked why he had been unable to sign a replacement defender during the transfer window, Mourinho replied: "For some reason it hasn't happened. I'm never allowed to do what I want to do! I'm the manager, I'm not the owner, the chief executive or the chairman, I'm just the manager. I give my opinions to the club and the club tries, if they want to, to give me what I think is good for the team. The market is open for another 10 days but it has been open for 20 days and if we didn't already get a player then I don't see why we should get one now."
"I'm not criticising anybody. At the end of December, I gave my opinion as always and I was saying: 'In my opinion, we need two players - a central defender, because we are in this position, and an attacking player. Joe Cole is out for the rest of the season, and also because Robben is injured a lot and, when he's injured, it's never for a small period. It's always for a long time.
"So in my opinion we needed something. I gave my opinion, and the club sometimes tries to do the best they can. But I am the first to agree that, even if we need players, you can't go into this crazy game and pay what people want. So you must be pragmatic, understand the reality of where we are."
Chelsea's reluctance to spend heavily in the winter window may be born of the fact that the last players recruited at the same stage in the last two seasons - Jiri Jarosik from CSKA Moscow in 2005 and Maniche from Dynamo Moscow in 2006 - failed to impress in their time at Stamford Bridge and had moved on within six months.
Instead, Mourinho is counting down the days until John Terry and Khalid Boulahrouz return from back and knee injuries respectively, with Carvalho expected to have recovered from his illness in time to feature at Stamford Bridge against Wycombe Wanderers in the Carling Cup tomorrow.
Liverpool 2 Chelsea 0: Benitez's master plan reveals Chelsea's lack of hunger in title fight
By Andy Hunter
Published: 22 January 2007
By the time Ricardo Carvalho placed a thermometer under his tongue on Saturday morning Rafael Benitez was behind his desk at Liverpool's training complex to finalise the plot that would procure a first League victory over Jose Mourinho and expose the true impact of internal division on the reigning Premiership champions.
Had he an inkling that this would be the day when the once indomitable spirit of Chelsea would plummet with inverse proportion to the mercury in their defender's mouth, the Liverpool manager may have spared himself the early dart from the family home across the Mersey.
Anfield has featured prominently in Chelsea's richest chapter, providing Roman Abramovich with his first taste of the Premiership in August 2003, Mourinho with confidence in the club's first League title for 50 years on New Year's Day 2005 and his first encounter with Champions' League deflation three months later.
Today it basks as the setting for, if not the meekest performance of the Mourinho era, then certainly the display when their belief and hunger for the fight ebbed lower than at any point since the Portuguese manager arrived to take charge at Stamford Bridge and turned his squad to face the world.
A first League defeat in 13 fixtures is no confirmation of freefall, nor can a team without their three central defenders become a model of resilience overnight, but there was a fragility about Chelsea on Saturday that mocked declarations that, contrary to reports, Stamford Bridge was still driving in the same direction.
"When I heard Ricardo couldn't play," Mourinho said of losing Carvalho to a virus before the match, "I saw in the faces of my players and it was easy to understand what was going on in their souls." Surrender? With the honourable exceptions of the returned goalkeeper Petr Cech, Michael Essien and Didier Drogba, that is how it appeared.
Only a month ago, and less than a mile from Anfield, the champions - without Cech and again without John Terry - retrieved a deficit against Everton through sheer force of will. One week later they chiselled another late win at Wigan. Now, after the draws and the disquiet, an unwillingness to accept responsibility for mistakes has dripped from Abramovich to Mourinho and down on to the players, with no one illustrating that point better than Michael Ballack.
When Chelsea craved example from their few remaining men of status the Germany captain delivered a performance so lacking in purpose, energy and interest as to be indebted to the Ukrainian striker Andrei Shevchenko for again masquerading as a diversion. Shevchenko remained on the sidelines for 73 minutes while the visitors flustered against Liverpool's back-line, but it was Ballack - having paid for his former club Chemnitz to re-hire a sacked physiotherapist last week - who donated nothing to Chelsea.
While the midfielder strolled through the motions - a little run here, a stretch there, but nothing too strenuous - Paulo Ferreira filled the central defensive void as though plucked from a career in accountancy rather than as a £13.2m right-back asked to step 20 yards inside.
The Portuguese international panicked the moment a straightforward pass from Geremi arrived at his feet in the opening seconds, and the accident did not wait long to happen when he stumbled in pursuit of a Peter Crouch header and allowed Dirk Kuyt to half-volley inside Cech in only the fourth minute.
Mourinho's injury list validates his pleas for defensive reinforcement, although Abramovich was not present to witness this copper-bottomed argument due to business commitments in Russia, but it is also what a manager conjures with depleted resources that determines his claim to a special reputation. As Anfield was quick to point out, Benitez has already delivered in that respect.
"Mourinho's a good manager with experience, with character," insisted his rival for second place. "When you have these problems you must show you are a good manager. I think he will. He's doing a very good job. We should be happy in our jobs because we both love football. Some people have more problems than us."
This was not the glowing endorsement it may seem from Benitez, however. He added: "Some people always say they didn't have this player or that player. In our first season, we had something like 10 injuries and we were losing games, but there were no excuses. We kept going."
And Liverpool won the Champions' League. How Mourinho would savour a repeat and such an emphatic riposte to those who seek to undermine him now.
The Liverpool manager was at Melwood by "8.30am, analysing the small details", and the instruction to bombard Chelsea's weakness with quick, diagonal balls would have produced a more emphatic victory but for misses by John Arne Riise, Kuyt and Crouch, who also failed to convert after the Norwegian almost broke the crossbar from 40 yards. Not that Anfield was in fear of its own wastefulness. Jermaine Pennant chose a fine time and a fabulous way to score his first Liverpool goal when he volleyed over Cech from 25 yards and Chelsea's response induced only laughter from the home terraces as Drogba found the roof of the Kop with his only chance and Ballack allowed a dangerous short free-kick to squirm between his legs.
"If we maintain this form we'll be closer to Manchester United as well as Chelsea," warned Benitez. At least Mourinho is becoming accustomed to glancing over his shoulder.
Goals: Kuyt (4) 1-0; Pennant (18) 2-0.
Liverpool (4-4-2): Reina; Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Aurelio; Pennant, Alonso, Gerrard, Riise; Kuyt (Gonzalez, 90), Crouch (Bellamy, 85). Substitutes not used: Dudek (gk), Hyypia, Fowler.
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Geremi, Ferreira, Essien, Cole; Mikel (Shevchenko, 73); Kalou, Ballack, Lampard, Robben (Wright-Phillips, 21); Drogba. Substitutes not used: Hilario (gk), Morais, Diarra.
Referee: R Styles (Hampshire).
Booked: Chelsea Ferreira.
Man of the match: Kuyt.
Attendance: 44,245.
(saved the best till last!)
Liverpool (2) 2 Chelsea (0) 0
You are asking me to abdicate? What were you before me? Nothing. I made you. If there is one thing I despise it's ingratitude – Rod Steiger as Napoleon to his marshals in Waterloo.
Mourinho
Unlucky 13: Jose Mourinho failed to beat Rafael Benitez in their 13th meeting
That is the golden rule for special ones everywhere. They are eventually humbled by people less special but more numerous than themselves. "Brought down by pygmies," as Norman Tebbit remarked when he watched Margaret Thatcher leave Downing Street for the last time. But at Stamford Bridge, the pygmies hold the cheque-book.
As he woke in the team hotel on Saturday morning learning that Ricardo Carvalho's illness meant he would be without any specialised central defenders at Anfield, it was possible for Jose Mourinho to convince himself that defeat, if and when it arrived, might not be catastrophic. And when he returned from a day out with his family, rather than watch yesterday's events at the Emirates Stadium, the gap was still six points.
But Liverpool's triumph was so crushing, so humiliatingly one-sided – that the distance between themselves and Manchester United appears much greater. This was Benitez's third competitive victory as Liverpool manager over Mourinho in 12 attempts. The first cost Chelsea the Champions League, the second the FA Cup and this might yet cost the Premiership.
Had Chelsea stuck to their grand strategy of having two players for every position, the kind of defensive crisis that allowed Dirk Kuyt, Peter Crouch and Jermaine Pennant to wreak havoc before 20 minutes were up would probably not have occurred.
However, like Real Madrid at the time of the galacticos, Chelsea were seduced into buying players they did not really need – Andrei Shevchenko, Michael Ballack and Ashley Cole. Less photogenic but more necessary footballers such as William Gallas and Damien Duff were allowed to leave and the consequences have been the same.
When he managed Real Madrid in David Beckham's first season, Carlos Queiroz would glance along his bench and be aghast at the lack of defensive cover. Repeatedly he asked Real to buy a centre-half and a holding midfielder to replace Claude Makelele, who tellingly was absent for Chelsea on Saturday. The richest club in the world repeatedly refused and Real Madrid ended the season an exhausted, incoherent shambles, hunted down by an infinitely less glamorous but more balanced Valencia side managed by Benitez.
Mourinho claimed that Benitez would have known for weeks that he would use the height and power of Crouch and Kuyt against a flimsy back four. The Liverpool manager replied that he took the decision at the club's training ground at around 9.30 on the morning of the game, just as Carvalho was reporting unwell. Whatever the truth, Chelsea's frailties were exposed by a flick from Crouch which Kuyt took past Paulo Ferreira and buried in Petr Cech's net. The clock showed three minutes and 21 seconds.
When Jermaine Pennant hammered in a second, more spectacular drive, Mourinho would have known the game was up. Liverpool had last conceded a Premiership goal at Anfield on Oct 28th. Nevertheless, Benitez's reaction was telling. As everyone around him flung their arms to the sky, he turned away and shrugged his shoulders. There was still ice in his veins.
There was nothing in Ballack's. Two-down and hemmed in by an overwhelmingly more confident side, this was the moment when the captain of Germany might have stepped forward. His response was a non-performance, empty of desire, effort or even interest. Mentally, he appears never to have left his home by the Bavarian lakes. It was something Mourinho seemed to notice. "Some personalities are weaker," he said. "That is why I try to surround myself with strong mentalities."
Ferreira's hopelessly amateurish back-pass to concede a corner and the dreadful mix up between Didier Drogba and Ballack as Chelsea squandered a rare free-kick were examples of this mental weakness. Michael Essien, employed out of position as a centre-half, was just about the only one of Mourinho's players to display the necessary fight. However, had John Arne Riise's spectacular drive not crashed against Cech's crossbar and Kuyt not missed in front of the Kop from six yards, the scoreline would have reflected the realities of a match Liverpool won without four first-team midfielders.
Anfield was where Abramovich's Russian revolution began with a 2-1 win in August 2003 and Anfield three-and-a-half years later was where it came most spectacularly apart. Only the owner and his manager know whether it is beyond repair.
Stat of the week
This was the 13th meeting between these teams in less than three years but the FIRST time Liverpool have beaten Chelsea, in that period, in the Premiership. In the previous five League meetings, Chelsea had won all five, scoring nine goals and conceding just one. Liverpool's only previous successes over Chelsea in that period have come in this season's Community Shield, the FA Cup last season and the Champions League, in May 2005.
John Ley
Talking point
When Jermaine Pennant's shot crashed past Petr Cech, there was an audible gasp around Anfield, not just because of the quality of the goal but the identity of the goal-scorer.
This was a player who has resisted attempts from managers as diverse in their approach as Arsene Wenger, Steve Bruce and Peter Reid to improve him, finally showing a glimpse of an enormous talent that even at the relatively young age of 23 looked as if it was wasting away. His previous goal, for Birmingham against Portsmouth, was a year ago.
"I have been telling him to score more goals," his manager, Rafael Benitez, said. "He needs to be more selfish; sometimes he tries to assist or cross instead."
Pennant may still go the way of Bruno Cheyrou, the last Liverpool player to score a Premiership winner against Chelsea; the goal just a brief upward blip on a relentless downward curve.
However, what was significant with Benitez complaining about the limited funds he is granted by the Liverpool board, is that his most recent signings –Pennant, Dirk Kuyt and Daniel Agger – all impressed. The men on whom Jose Mourinho and Roman Abramovich had lavished transfer fees and salaries in the summer – Ashley Cole, John Obi Mikel, Salomon Kalou, Andrei Shevchenko and especially Michael Ballack – performed miserably when it absolutely mattered.
Match details
Liverpool (4-4-2): Reina; Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Aurelio; Pennant, Gerrard, Alonso, Riise; Crouch (Bellamy 85), Kuyt (Gonzalez 90).
Subs: Dudek (g), Hyypia, Fowler.
Chelsea (4-3-3): Cech; Geremi, Essien, Ferreira, Cole; Ballack, Obi Mikel (Shevchenko 74), Lampard; Kalou, Drogba, Robben (Wright-Phillips 21).
Subs: Hilario (g), Morais, Diarra.
Booked: Ferreira.
Man of the match: John Arne Riise (Liverpool).
Referee: R Styles (Hampshire).
Att: 44,245.
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