Chelsea vs Liverpool - Premier League (20/21 - Game 2)

[Shaggy]

[ame]https://twitter.com/SamueILFC/status/1307962540840845312[/ame]

[Fivex]

Awkward!

[RedReet]

He should have went nuts himself and started waving the imaginary card right in front of Lampard's face.

[Maxiedge]

Since we're going through clips of the game, anyone seen the Mo penalty incident?Looked like a pen to me but they didn't show any replay. If it was a dive, he should have got booked, no?

[Shaggy]

Anyone able to kindly post this?

I enjoy Coxy's analysis. Not least because he's one of mine and Adam's closest chums.

[ame]https://twitter.com/Zonal_Marking/status/1308015427914805248[/ame]

[Saveloy]

Formatting is a bit funny as there are a lot of pictures from the game in it. No idea how to copy those on my phone.
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Following the long-awaited arrival of Thiago Alcantara, Jurgen Klopp finds himself with three excellent options in the deepest midfield role: Thiago, Jordan Henderson and Fabinho.

Over the past few years, the pattern has become clear: if Liverpool ever need to prove that their holding midfielder has the authority and ability to dominate a game against top opponents, they simply need to take a trip to Stamford Bridge.

Four years ago, at the beginning of Klopp’s first full season in charge of Liverpool, he switched to a 4-3-3 formation, having generally played 4-2-3-1 throughout his first few months in charge. The player this affected most dramatically was Henderson, who was no longer playing in a double pivot, but instead on his own in front of the defence. That 4-3-3 would become Liverpool’s default shape, and their first outstanding display in that formation came in a 2-1 win over eventual champions Chelsea.

With Antonio Conte’s side using 4-3-3 themselves before the famous switch to 3-4-3 the following weekend, Henderson had time and space to dictate the game, in front of a Chelsea midfield not looking to press…



…and he also used that freedom to smash in a stunning long-range goal to make it 2-0.

Fast-forward to last season, and Liverpool’s regular holding midfielder was Fabinho, with Henderson having moved to the right. Again, the trip to Stamford Bridge — and another 2-1 victory — was a chance for Klopp’s deepest midfielder to shine, with Fabinho giving his most dominant display of the campaign. As detailed at the time, he pushed up to press his opposite number, the fellow Brazilian-born holding player Jorginho, and then found space away from him to thread balls into the forwards.



The rematch between Fabinho and Jorginho seemed likely to prove important to the tactical shape of Sunday’s game, but Liverpool’s injury problems at centre-back meant Fabinho was forced to deputise at the back alongside Virgil van Dijk. Fabinho has played that role comfortably before, but it would have been easy to assume he would struggle against a forward offering the acceleration of Timo Werner.

But Fabinho performed excellently against the Germany forward, particularly impressing in two individual duels when he was isolated in the first half.

This is precisely the situation Fabinho might have feared, but he positioned himself astutely to show Werner down the outside…



…and then simply got his body between opponent and player, winning a free kick.



The other major incident looked more perilous, with Werner having even more space on the outside of Fabinho.



Interestingly, Fabinho defended this situation in the opposite manner — knowing he had support from Van Dijk, he was happy to show Werner inside into traffic, and the striker couldn’t get a shot away.



With Fabinho in defence, it was Henderson in the holding role once again, and he demonstrated his range of passing throughout the first half, particularly when sweeping the ball out to left-back Andy Robertson, whether in build-up play…



…or in creating chances — here, Henderson made a decent volleyed opportunity for Robertson, who ought to have made a better connection.



The major story, though, was how — just as in 2016 and 2019 — Chelsea had no plan for shutting down Liverpool’s deepest midfielder. Here’s a simple situation early in the game, with Alisson looking to play out from the back. Henderson is in space, so Alisson feeds the ball into his feet…



…but bizarrely, this simple pass attracts all three of Chelsea’s midfielders — Mateo Kovacic, Jorginho and N’Golo Kante — towards the ball. None of them is quite close enough to confront Henderson, so he has time to thread a pass through for Naby Keita…



…who finds himself running at Chelsea’s defence, with Roberto Firmino also in oceans of space between the lines.



Henderson has developed a good relationship with Keita, which means that even when Liverpool’s captain is brought back into this deep role, rather than playing on the right of Liverpool’s trio, he can still move across to work his combinations with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah down the flank.

Here’s a good example — initially Henderson is in his usual holding role, but senses an opportunity to sprint into the channel. Keita drops in to ensure Liverpool have protection in front of the defence…



…so Keita becomes the holding player, and Henderson is briefly back in his role as a No 8.



Henderson is also happy dropping into the defence, becoming a third centre-back when Alexander-Arnold pushes on.



But Henderson’s key contribution was essentially his last of the game. This long, driven ball downfield…



…released Sadio Mane in behind. Andreas Christensen was caught out, and rugby-tackled him to the ground, so Chelsea were down to 10 men on the stroke of half-time.



At the interval, Henderson departed with a slight hamstring strain and it’s not unreasonable to suggest he might have sustained it playing that game-changing pass.

So, Thiago made his Liverpool debut sooner than he might have expected. Beforehand, Klopp rubbished the idea that Thiago might have started, explaining that he’s unaccustomed to playing midfield in a 4-3-3 — he’d been playing in a 4-2-3-1 at Bayern. But in a game where Chelsea were making minimal effort to close down Liverpool’s holding midfielder when they had 11 men, Thiago was going to get the run of Stamford Bridge against 10 men. This was an ideal opportunity for his debut.

Such was the lack of pressure on him throughout the second half, Thiago completed more passes in 45 minutes than any Chelsea player did in 90. His 82 passes in 45 minutes means, in pass-per-minute terms, he was more regularly involved than any Liverpool player has been in any Premier League match over the past four seasons.

Aside from his clumsy concession of a penalty, which was missed by Jorginho, Thiago’s performance was very encouraging. If there’s one thing at which he excels, it’s surprising opponents with a whipped, or cut, pass out to his left, having opened up his body and looked as if he was going to play the ball to the right.

Here’s a good example of that type of ball. Fabinho and Keita are building up play to the right, so Thiago is looking towards that flank alone.



Just before Keita knocks the back towards him, Thiago looks up and scans the pitch. Chelsea’s players are still focused on Keita, so won’t have seen this head movement.



And then, without having to look over towards the near side, and shaping as if to play the ball forward into an attacker between the lines, Thiago whips a pass out to the left…



…where Robertson was in space. In principle, it’s a simple pass, but it demonstrates what Thiago is all about.



Here’s another case — Thiago looks as if he’s about to play a square ball out to Fabinho, so Mason Mount starts pushing forward to close down the Brazil international…



…but again, there’s the sudden hip movement, the whipping of his right leg across his left, the head movement in the complete opposite direction to further confuse his opponents, and a reverse pass into Salah between the lines.



And in the closing stages, an almost identical situation — this blatantly looks like a square pass to Alexander-Arnold…



…but no, it’s a disguised reverse pass, again looking away from the recipient, Georginio Wijnaldum.



Thiago couldn’t have wished for better circumstances to make his debut, and Klopp couldn’t have wished for a better demonstration of his three options at holding midfield. Usually, a debut of this standard would prompt questions about Fabinho and Henderson’s position in the side. But with Henderson comfortable as a No 8 and Fabinho seemingly unflappable at the back, Klopp doesn’t have to choose between his three holding midfielders — he can simply play them all.

[Shaggy]

Cheers mate. Lovely stuff.

[Buzzo]

I must say I enjoyed this pre-match take down of 'Lamps' on Sunday morning.

Frank Lampard’s blue privilege will go only so far against self-made Klopp

Backed by a clutch of costly summer arrivals, the bristling Chelsea manager must back his jibes with results

Barney Ronay

“Only title you’ve won and you’re giving it the big ’un.”

There were some fascinating shades to the touchline stramash between Frank Lampard and Jürgen Klopp in the dog days of the Premier League’s summer season.

Liverpool were 1-0 up at Anfield. Mateo Kovacic had just been booked, a little softly, for a foul on Sadio Mané. In touchline footage of the incident, the managers are up on their feet watching the game, but Lampard is already seething, pre-enraged, whirling about in his padded coat, a man for whom this straw, whichever straw it may be, is clearly the last straw.

The initial beef appears to have involved members of the Liverpool staff, whom Lampard keeps speaking to even as Klopp repeatedly tells him to calm down, gesturing with both hands like a man instructing an excitable labradoodle puppy to stop barking at the letterbox.

At which point Lampard goes nuclear. Nobody puts Frank in the corner. Patronised in front of his bench, perhaps feeling himself losing the moment, he decides to pull rank with that bare-knuckle, shirts-off, medals-on-the-table jibe.

The implications of which seem clear enough. He, Frank, has won three of those things, not just the one. He, Frank, was on the Anfield pitch six years ago when the last one of your lot to attempt the giving-of-the-big-one was put in his place by toxic, touchy mid-career José, who seems increasingly to be a key influence. And finally, while Liverpool’s title win was impressive, he, Frank, will be the judge of exactly what the correct level of excitement is around here.

Exchanges such as these are generally best forgotten, a process not helped in this case by the stadium silence clarifying every word (“Tell them to have respect!”) while also capturing the gawks and gasps of the players sitting behind.

But this did feel like a significant moment or at least a choice of words that offers its own way in, its own clues. First, about the differing paths Lampard and Klopp have taken to reach this shared stage. And second about Lampard’s own public persona, the sense of a man for whom the path from A-list player to A-list manager has been greased and hurried along; and whose time at Chelsea has been accompanied by the clanks and creaks and whirring pulleys of a popular pantomime villain being winched into place.

At which point, welcome to round two. Liverpool’s trip to Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon was always likely to be a bravura occasion, not just a first meeting of title challengers, but a fixture that has often had something slightly wild about it. A mere 60 days on, it is inevitable a first public reunion of the two managers will become a point of focus.

Rightly so, too: Jürgen v Frank II is a mouthwatering piece of froth, not to mention an easy dichotomy to draw. Klopp is, if nothing else, a self-made presence in professional football. His father sold wall fixings and had nothing of any sporting value to bequeath but a fierce competitive spirit. His honours as a player were easy to keep track of: there weren’t any. As a coach, Klopp took six years and three seasons in Bundesliga.2 to get his big break.

Whereas Frank Lampard: Elite Level Manager is something else altogether. Success is what happens when talent meets opportunity. What if you just keep on getting a lot more opportunity than other people?

Lampard’s father, Frank Sr, played for England and was the assistant manager at his first Premier League club (assistant, lest we forget, to Lampard’s uncle). In his autobiography, Rio Ferdinand recalls being stunned by the sheer opulence of Lampard’s home life as a young footballer – “the Ralph Lauren jumpers and shirts piled high in his wardrobe, a different one for every day of the week”.

Before long uncle Harry Redknapp was telling a televised fans forum that Frank would go to the top – “right to the very top” – as a player. Reassurance, good choices, strong connections: none of this can make you succeed. But it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Management has been a fast-forward version of this process. First up uncle Harry got him a job at Ipswich (“I said: ‘You need a manager; Frank Lampard is your man.’”) but Frank turned Ipswich down. The budget wasn’t up to scratch. But wait! Harry has heard Derby need a manager, too. (“I rang Mel Morris… I said: ‘Take Frank Lampard.’”)

There is, as yet, no word on Harry phoning Roman Abramovich on his yacht (“I said: ‘Roman, mate, take Frank …’”) but by now that path looked set, eased by Morris’s relationship with Chelsea, by Maurizio Sarri’s poor fit with the fans and by some flattering coverage of the failure to gain promotion with Derby.

Even then the move back to Stamford Bridge found an additional note of fortune with the concurrent loosening of the financial fair play shackles. And so here he stands, a 42-year-old with no real managerial pedigree beyond the one he was born with, in charge of the highest close-season spenders in European club football.

It is a theme Klopp turned to in the post-Anfield rumblings with a reference, as Chelsea hoovered up assorted shared transfer targets, to “clubs owned by countries and oligarchs”. In return Lampard noted that Liverpool’s own recruitment has been “at a high level money-wise”.

It seems likely to be a theme of the day. Tory boy Frank and his endlessly gushing money well ranged against Jürgen and the hedge-funders, with their moral rectitude and their spending caps, the authority born of finely budgeted success.

There are two points worth making. First, as ever, the truth is more blurred. The idea Chelsea have embarked on a wild, generational spending splurge is only half right. The summer brought a series of fantasy-football-style additions, but as the financial blogger Swiss Ramble has pointed out this is just the usual business model in overdrive.

Chelsea are a selling cub as much as a buying one. Their net player spend in the past two years is around £60m. The market is depressed. Youthful talent is up for grabs. It is the moment to invest. If Chelsea don’t buy Kai Havertz now then they can’t also sell him on in two years’ time at a profit.

Plus, Lampard is right to an extent. Chelsea’s purchases may be backed by Abramovich’s willingness to lend cash, their economic heft an unearned, ersatz thing. But their starting XI on the opening day of the season still cost slightly less than Liverpool’s own. The real point of tension is that Liverpool have been cautious while Chelsea have stomped right across the set. Liverpool wanted to sign Timo Werner, but the gossip well suggests they have also looked at Havertz, Ben Chilwell and Hakim Ziyech in the past couple of years.

It may seem a deeply Lampard kind of moment that all four of those players should arrive instead at Stamford Bridge this summer. But favour and patronage only take you so far and there is a pressure with this, too.

The decision to hire Lampard was commercial as much as sentimental, a way of appeasing the fanbase and burnishing the brand in a year when the ability to build a team was curtailed. That has now gone. There is no reason to assume this group of players can’t stay on Liverpool’s shoulder into the new year and perhaps even prevent them from adding to that total of one measly title.

At Brighton on Monday Chelsea were sleepy for 45 minutes, then energised by the sheer quality of replacements Lampard could send on. Werner looked like what he is, a stellar attacking talent. Havertz will get better (he couldn’t get much worse). Ziyech and Christian Pulisic are still to enter the frame. A new, or at least mildly competent, goalkeeper would round off the picture, and a £22m deal for Édouard Mendy has been agreed with Rennes.

The path to this point may have been smoothed, paved at times with blue privilege. But Lampard will be judged by the hierarchy on his results this year; no doubt with the usual degree of ruthlessness.

[Mr Pink]

https://twitter.com/SamueILFC/status...62540840845312

He’s got so much class- don’t think any other manager in the league would do that... maybe some would not celebrate it, but to call out their own bench for it, very classy!

Only thing is I feel like a real dick now, cos I was going buck daft at the time!! Hope klopp wouldn’t be too disappointed, haha

[baitman]

He should have went nuts himself and started waving the imaginary card right in front of Lampard's face.

And a knee slide

[Exiled_red]

What are everyone's views on Lampard? I disliked him as a player because of the whole Gerrard vs Lampard thing and the LFC vs Chavs thing, but also he seems to get a lot of lucky or deflected goals for a few years which really wound me up. After he stopped playing in the PL I was rather indifferent to him. But the game at the end of last season and the build up and the game this weekend have really started to make me dislike him again, probably not far of the level of dislike when he was playing for the Chavs.

[Fosterbloke]

He’s got so much class- don’t think any other manager in the league would do that... maybe some would not celebrate it, but to call out their own bench for it, very classy!

Only thing is I feel like a real dick now, cos I was going buck daft at the time!! Hope klopp wouldn’t be too disappointed, haha

It's ok for plebs like us, we're there to be entertained but for the players, it's simply professional courtesy.

[Roboklopp]

What are everyone's views on Lampard? I disliked him as a player because of the whole Gerrard vs Lampard thing and the LFC vs Chavs thing, but also he seems to get a lot of lucky or deflected goals for a few years which really wound me up. After he stopped playing in the PL I was rather indifferent to him. But the game at the end of last season and the build up and the game this weekend have really started to make me dislike him again, probably not far of the level of dislike when he was playing for the Chavs.

Pretty much the same. Think I became ambivalent to him cos he ain’t as much as an obvious cunt as Terry. Cunt nonetheless mind.

[Shaggy]

What are everyone's views on Lampard? I disliked him as a player because of the whole Gerrard vs Lampard thing and the LFC vs Chavs thing, but also he seems to get a lot of lucky or deflected goals for a few years which really wound me up. After he stopped playing in the PL I was rather indifferent to him. But the game at the end of last season and the build up and the game this weekend have really started to make me dislike him again, probably not far of the level of dislike when he was playing for the Chavs.

Can't stand him. Really disliked him since he broke Xabi's ankle.

He's become even more of a cunt since becoming a manager. And he's a Tory.

In 2007 Lampard outed himself as a Conservative supporter, saying: "I had a really good chat with David. As a footballer I don't want to get involved with the campaigning thing but I am a Tory and I really like David Cameron."

In short, he's a complete cunt.

[Venton]

Can't stand him. Really disliked him since he broke Xabi's ankle.

He's become even more of a cunt since becoming a manager. And he's a Tory.

In short, he's a complete cunt.

good summary