Chelsea defensive wall blunts Liverpool’s attacking edge

There was no surprise that Chelsea came to town with a well marshalled formation happy to give away possession, but the disappointment lay in the fact that in 90 minutes apart from Gerrard’s header and Sakho blazing over in the first-half, we created very little of any consequence inside the box and had to watch while Torres strode away and laid of the final pass for the killer goal which quashed any lingering hopes.

The style of play has been Chelsea’s raison d’etre all season, but we had very little answer.  Yes we had a lot of possession, but time and again we failed to get in behind and deliver enough quality in the final third on too many occasions.    In fact, we were reduced to shooting from distance in desperation and the creative elements of the team over the past few weeks in Coutinho and Sturridge started brightly, but as the game went on seemed hamstrung by the restrictions placed on them by Chelsea’s miserly defence and their five man midfield working in tandem.

Chelsea set out to disrupt our usual dynamic start by slowing down the game with time wasting tactics which Martin Atkinson did very little to stop apart from pointing to his watch.

That being said, Chelsea very rarely threatened and any goal was going to come from a mistake.  Unfortunately, the mistake was from our captain and Ba did well to capitalise, shooting through Mignolet’s legs.

Gerrard seemed hell bent on making up for his mistake firing off a sequence of long range efforts without his usual boy’s own devastation.  The organisation of the Chelsea was causing Liverpool to lose patience with a series of passes failing to find their designated targets. Rodgers sensed his team needed inspiration as for once Suarez lacked his usual spark and without Henderson’s drive from midfield Chelsea were fending off our attacks with ease.  Daniel Sturridge replaced Lucas.

Unfortunately, Sturridge made very little difference as we were still unable to break free of Chelsea’s shackles.    The industrious Joe Allen’s drive volley was well saved by Mark Schwarzer was the closest we came on a disappointing day.

With Liverpool throwing everything barring the kitchen sink forward,  Aspas who had come on for Flanagan, unbelievably in the final throes of the match decided to try to find a colleague outside the box ball from the corner instead of putting the ball in the area with the whole team waiting. Instead he found a Chelsea player and in the blink of an eye the ball nestled in the net behind Mignolet to extinghish any remaining hopes.

Critical eye:  You can’t legislate for mistakes, but unfortunately this was a match where Mourinho out manoervered us in stifling are attacking verve, while making us look one dimensional.

Not having Henderson and a fully fit Daniel Sturridge stretched the squad to its limits in terms of the quality available, but we always knew that we’d been living on the edge.  Brendan could have thrown Agger on upfront for the final ten minutes, but there is no point second guessing because he has got us this far.

Yes, it is disappointing because with a win we knew the promised-land lay so near and with draw it was still within our control to get there.  We know it’s not over, but we still have to believe and take it to the wire.

Teams:

Liverpool: 22 Mignolet, 2 Johnson, 38 Flanagan (Iago Aspas – 81 mins),  8 Gerrard, 37 Skrtel, 17 Sakho, 21 Lucas (Sturridge - 58 mins), 24 Allen, 7 Suarez, 31 Sterling, 10 Coutino

Subs: 1 Jones, 4 Kolo Toure, 5 Agger, 6 Luis Alberto, 9 Iago Aspas, 15 Sturridge, 20 Cissokho

Chelsea: 23 Schwarzer, 28 Azpilicueta, 3 Cole, 12 Mikel, 2 Ivanovic, 33 Kalas, 21 Matic, 8 Lampard, 19 Ba (Torres – 84 mins), 15 Salah (Willian – 60 mins), 14 Schurrle (Cahill 77)

Subs: 9 Torres, 16 Van Ginkel, 22 Willian, 24 Cahill, 27 Ake, 40 Hilario, 47 Baker

Referee: Martin Atkinson

Attendance: 44, 726