Chelsea (H) Post Match

[Roboklopp]

Remember he did exactly the same with exactly the same outcome at Citeh.

[Leyton388]

Today we all saw WHY Madrid sacked him. He's a complete and utter fraud and having the likes of Ronaldo and Co playing like that it's no wonder the fans turned on him and they got shot.

[TheElephantMan]

Today we all saw WHY Madrid sacked him. He's a complete and utter fraud and having the likes of Ronaldo and Co playing like that it's no wonder the fans turned on him and they got shot.

There is some truth in that. There is a lot of talent in that Chelsea side yet their football is horrible to watch. It might be effective, but it's ****.

[calvoboy]

Most ****ing journos are the same all this ****e about defensive masterclass etc just a bunch of timwasting cunts playing for a cunt owned by a cunt and supported by a bunch of cunts

This is a decent one, apart from the line about near silence - it wasn't as loud as City granted, but it was far from quiet

Chelsea blow title race open after mistake by Liverpool's Steven Gerrard

When it was all finished, with Steven Gerrard ruminating on a mistake that threatens to stick to his conscience like superglue, Brendan Rodgers could not disguise his disdain. "There were probably two buses parked today instead of one," he said. Chelsea, he said, had been time-wasting from the first minute, defending with 10 players on the 18-yard line. Liverpool's manager smiled and stabbed. It was not difficult to coach a team to be that negative, he added.

No doubt there will be plenty who share his dislike of the way Chelsea set about to smother this game. Their tactics were cynical, calculated and often maddening. They were also, ultimately, spot on and that really was the bottom line after Liverpool's inability to get past those two buses had blown a gaping hole in their title chances.

The handbrake was on, the keys had been chucked into the nearest drain and, for the first time in a long time, Anfield watched in something close to silence.

Mourinho will not care if the opposition manager wallows in a vat of sour grapes. Call it anti-football, or whatever you like, but this match will not go into the record books with an asterisk to remind everyone that Chelsea did it the ugly way. It may, however, be remembered as the defining moment of Liverpool's season and a personal ordeal for Gerrard bearing in mind the potential consequences.

Of all the people, in all the places, nobody could have imagined it would be Gerrard, in front of the Kop, making the mistake that changed everything. Rodgers immediately sought to absolve Gerrard, reminding his players at half-time this was someone who had "picked up this club so many times", and it would need a flint heart not to try to imagine the scale of the player's trauma. Yet this is a hard business and teams that want to win the league cannot be as generous as Gerrard was when Mamadou Sakho's pass rolled under the foot of Liverpool's captain and Demba Ba was suddenly running clear to score.

Glen Johnson could be seen in the second half trying to cajole his team-mate but Gerrard played the rest of the match as if he was struggling to shake it out of his system. He knew the ramifications and Liverpool's efforts to retrieve the damage carried none of the elegance and vigour that have been the hallmark of their season. Gerrard, if anything, was too desperate to make amends, rushing his work and trying long-range shots when a simple pass would have been more effective.

Chelsea defended with structure, brilliance and the kind of togetherness that seems to come almost naturally to Mourinho's teams on the big occasions. He talked about it afterwards as the immaculate defensive performance – "no mistakes, the best team won" – and it culminated with Liverpool putting so much into trying to find an equaliser that they left themselves vulnerable to that moment, right at the end, when Fernando Torres and Willian broke on the counterattack. The two substitutes had nothing between them and Simon Mignolet but open air. Torres set up Willian and Mourinho was on one of his victory runs, beating his chest, letting out all the pent-up emotion.

Rodgers had his say afterwards but, lest it be forgotten, this was a Chelsea side put together with the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Atlético Madrid in mind. Mark Schwarzer, Branislav Ivanovic and César Azpilicueta will start on Wednesday and Ashley Cole has a fair-to-middling chance. That apart, Mourinho had brought in his support cast, including a 20-year-old centre-half by the name of Tomas Kalas for his Premier League debut.

Kalas's previous Chelsea career had consisted of two appearances as an 89th-minute substitute in cup competitions and he recently joked that his role at the club was to be a training-ground cone. Yet he demonstrated here why he has already won a cap for the Czech Republic. "Beautiful," Mourinho said afterwards. "Beautiful … this kid, Liverpool, Anfield, just beautiful."

Luis Suárez chose a bad day to have one of his more undistinguished performances but a lot of that was to do with the expertise that Kalas and Ivanovic showed. Azpilicueta and Cole matched them and Schwarzer, at the age of 41, showed there is not a lot that fazes him. "They had 10 behind the ball from the first minute," Rodgers said. He had better get used to it.

Mourinho's team gave everything to make sure they could not be added to the list of visitors to Anfield who had been blitzed. Time-wasters? Undoubtedly. They tied their shoelaces. They had collective, and convenient, cramp. They pretended they could not hear the whistle and when they had a throw-in or free-kick nobody was ever in a rush to take it. It was calculated, and often unsatisfactory, and when the ball came to Mourinho there was a telling scene as Gerrard and Jon Flanagan tried to wrestle it off him. Chelsea's manager spun it behind his back and tossed it out of their reach. That was six minutes in.

What an irony that it was in the added-on time at the end of the first half – and the referee, Martin Atkinson, really should have included more – that Chelsea took the lead. Liverpool had no choice but to take more risks in the second half but they lacked their usual creativity and dynamism. Willian slipped the ball into an empty net and Liverpool, from a position of command, must fear all that brilliant momentum has gone.

[calvoboy]

Ultimately, we can't complain about the tactics - we did exactly the same at the Nou Camp under Houllier for a nil-nil (I was there!), and under Rafa at Stamford Bridge. We can complain about the cynical play, gamesmanship, and time-wasting though. Unfortunately the ref (who I usually don't mind) was weak and allowed them to spoil to their heart's content, and we didn't have that bit of luck that you need to get the first goal.

Schwarzer made two or three top-class saves, plus they cleared one off the line first half, and we really needed one of those to go in to draw them out a little. As it was, Gerrard's slip gifted them the first goal and it was always going to be tough from then on to get two against their 8-1-1 formation.

I thought today really showed the weakness in our squad too. Lucas was woeful when asked to create and be dynamic in the attacking midfield position, but who else was there without Henderson and Sturridge? Sturridge showed in his late spell why he wasn't fit enough or sharp enough to start, but we had no-one else in the squad capable of leading the line with pace in the same way.

We're still not out of it yet though. Heads up, we go again at Palace a week Monday, and hopefully by then City will have had a wobble...

[kop-al-74]

If we had sat back and waited, the game would have been a bore draw. They were hoping for a set piece or mistake.

Right but we would have had a point instead of none and had the league title in our own hand's. That's the difference and the reason why Utd have won so many more titles in recent times.

They knew when to play to win and to play not to lose.

That is something we will need to learn and I believe Rodger's is the right man to learn from this.

We have achieved our season objectives but to be so close and to blow it at this stag would be really hard to digest.

[mick the click]

Ultimately, we can't complain about the tactics - we did exactly the same at the Nou Camp under Houllier for a nil-nil (I was there!), and under Rafa at Stamford Bridge. We can complain about the cynical play, gamesmanship, and time-wasting though. Unfortunately the ref (who I usually don't mind) was weak and allowed them to spoil to their heart's content, and we didn't have that bit of luck that you need to get the first goal.

Schwarzer made two or three top-class saves, plus they cleared one off the line first half, and we really needed one of those to go in to draw them out a little. As it was, Gerrard's slip gifted them the first goal and it was always going to be tough from then on to get two against their 8-1-1 formation.

I thought today really showed the weakness in our squad too. Lucas was woeful when asked to create and be dynamic in the attacking midfield position, but who else was there without Henderson and Sturridge? Sturridge showed in his late spell why he wasn't fit enough or sharp enough to start, but we had no-one else in the squad capable of leading the line with pace in the same way.

We're still not out of it yet though. Heads up, we go again at Palace a week Monday, and hopefully by then City will have had a wobble...

[G]

This is massively over the top, we've done more than fine v the top teams this season, disappointing two defeats to Chelsea but then we're still going to finish above them in the league...if we'd sat back v them and a goal didnt come early you'd have gone absolutely nuts!! Easy to say all this now, the game was going ok, just a freak mistake cost us, not exactly a tactical outclassing.

City lost twice to Chelsea too

[Chris]

Right but we would have had a point instead of none and had the league title in our own hand's. That's the difference and the reason why Utd have won so many more titles in recent times.

I cant imagine telling a squad to stop playing the way thats got them top and now do the complete opposite 35 games in to a season would be a good move at all. This is huge hindsight and even if we did play for a draw a player can still slip over, make a dodgy pass or whatever anyway, their goal was a fluke.

[danperkins]

Ultimately, we can't complain about the tactics - we did exactly the same at the Nou Camp under Houllier for a nil-nil (I was there!), and under Rafa at Stamford Bridge. We can complain about the cynical play, gamesmanship, and time-wasting though. Unfortunately the ref (who I usually don't mind) was weak and allowed them to spoil to their heart's content, and we didn't have that bit of luck that you need to get the first goal.

Schwarzer made two or three top-class saves, plus they cleared one off the line first half, and we really needed one of those to go in to draw them out a little. As it was, Gerrard's slip gifted them the first goal and it was always going to be tough from then on to get two against their 8-1-1 formation.

I thought today really showed the weakness in our squad too. Lucas was woeful when asked to create and be dynamic in the attacking midfield position, but who else was there without Henderson and Sturridge? Sturridge showed in his late spell why he wasn't fit enough or sharp enough to start, but we had no-one else in the squad capable of leading the line with pace in the same way.

We're still not out of it yet though. Heads up, we go again at Palace a week Monday, and hopefully by then City will have had a wobble...

[tanner]

Its going to be tough to get the title now but its still within our reach which has to be the only positive to come from today. Its funny how things pan out. If someone had said to me at the start of the season that we'd be where we are now, I'd probably have laughed, yet here I sit bitterly disappointed with todays result whilst we're sat at the top of the table with just a couple of games left. Its crazy.

I was unable to watch the game today and had to settle for the radio, which becomes a device of torture during moments like these, every ball kicked sounds incredibly important and every shot is a near miss. The phone in afterwards was possibly even more tortuous with Call Collymore attracting many a cretin fighting for their 15 minutes of fame. One caller had me reaching for the mute button, a Chelsea fan claiming firstly that Brendan was classless in saying that Chelsea had "parked the bus" and then secondly that "what Mourinho had achieved this season was nothing short of a miracle with this squad." My head nearly exploded at this point, but then Collymore said that he completely agreed! What followed was a complete Mourihno wankfest which followed into the next show.

I've always said that mediocre tacticians can build a team to defend well and that only the best managers can build a team to defend and attack. You only have to look at the likes of Pulis, Alladyce and Hodgson to see that, but the difference is that they tend to do this at squads with few resources. Mourinho adopts the same tactics with some of the worlds best players, with one of the most expensive collection of players in English history, so is he really a great tactician or just a great manager? Adopting this style of football with such riches will always return silverware, but is it really a tactical masterclass? I think not.

If I'm being fair, my belief has to be applied to Rogers too. At times this season we've been exceptional moving forward, but also really awful at the back, and this is something we need to work on. To be fair though, with the resources we have (financially speaking) I really don't think we'd be near where we are now if didn't adopt the principle of scoring more than them. Anymore conservative and we'd probably be hovering around 4th spot. My fear though is that this season we've managed to catch a ten year wave and if we leave it empty handed it could be another 10 years before it happens again and that would hurt like hell. I really want Gerrard to lift the trophy.

God I hate Chelsea, hypocrisy seems to be deeply rooted in the psyche of everyone one at the club.

[kop-al-74]

I cant imagine telling a squad to stop playing the way thats got them top and now do the complete opposite 35 games in to a season would be a good move at all. This is huge hindsight and even if we did play for a draw a player can still slip over, make a dodgy pass or whatever anyway, their goal was a fluke.

I never said go for a draw, just to vary tactics and maybe counter bluff them. Sit back to start and counter them. I believe that would have certainly made them re think their play.

[TheElephantMan]

I never said go for a draw, just to vary tactics and maybe counter bluff them. Sit back to start and counter them. I believe that would have certainly made them re think their play.

That's not the way we play though is it? It isn't that simple I'm sure. We'd have to work on those tactics and then we'd be trying to match Chelsea at their game instead of focusing on our own.

[BootRoom]

I never said go for a draw, just to vary tactics and maybe counter bluff them. Sit back to start and counter them. I believe that would have certainly made them re think their play.

They weren't really interested in putting up a fight to get forward, so if we just sat back and invited them on it would have given them more space around our box for little effort, and more opportunity to win dangerous free kicks and corners. They wouldn't have been tricked into suddenly pouring men forward and leaving themselves exposed at the back. Keeping them as far away as possible from our goal was the best policy, and their negativity was very accommodating in that regard.

[Buzzo]

Its going to be tough to get the title now but its still within our reach which has to be the only positive to come from today. Its funny how things pan out. If someone had said to me at the start of the season that we'd be where we are now, I'd probably have laughed, yet here I sit bitterly disappointed with todays result whilst we're sat at the top of the table with just a couple of games left. Its crazy.

I was unable to watch the game today and had to settle for the radio, which becomes a device of torture during moments like these, every ball kicked sounds incredibly important and every shot is a near miss. The phone in afterwards was possibly even more tortuous with Call Collymore attracting many a cretin fighting for their 15 minutes of fame. One caller had me reaching for the mute button, a Chelsea fan claiming firstly that Brendan was classless in saying that Chelsea had "parked the bus" and then secondly that "what Mourinho had achieved this season was nothing short of a miracle with this squad." My head nearly exploded at this point, but then Collymore said that he completely agreed! What followed was a complete Mourihno wankfest which followed into the next show.

I've always said that mediocre tacticians can build a team to defend well and that only the best managers can build a team to defend and attack. You only have to look at the likes of Pulis, Alladyce and Hodgson to see that, but the difference is that they tend to do this at squads with few resources. Mourinho adopts the same tactics with some of the worlds best players, with one of the most expensive collection of players in English history, so is he really a great tactician or just a great manager? Adopting this style of football with such riches will always return silverware, but is it really a tactical masterclass? I think not.

If I'm being fair, my belief has to be applied to Rogers too. At times this season we've been exceptional moving forward, but also really awful at the back, and this is something we need to work on. To be fair though, with the resources we have (financially speaking) I really don't think we'd be near where we are now if didn't adopt the principle of scoring more than them. Anymore conservative and we'd probably be hovering around 4th spot. My fear though is that this season we've managed to catch a ten year wave and if we leave it empty handed it could be another 10 years before it happens again and that would hurt like hell. I really want Gerrard to lift the trophy.

God I hate Chelsea, hypocrisy seems to be deeply rooted in the psyche of everyone one at the club.

Good post.