Liverpool running empty as Chelsea looks to steam roller
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Steven Gerrard's Liverpool are down and almost out after their European defeat this week. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images
The current Liverpool side is the least of Chelsea's worries as they prepare for a match at Anfield in which victory will put them on the verge of the Premier League title or even make them champions, depending on an outcome elsewhere. If results were all that mattered, Manchester United would be more apprehensive about their trip to the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland are unbeaten since mid-December.
All the same, certain matters of plain fact will gnaw at Carlo Ancelotti. His Chelsea side have won only half their away matches in the Premier League and, while that is a far from shameful record, it is a reminder of how simple it can be to fail. They are not alone in being beaten at Wigan but going down 3-1 there in September was an ugly business.
Today's visitors to Anfield, however, are bolstered by other statistics. While this line-up contains several players who are turning into veterans or at least showing signs of wear and tear, these are men who lead the table because they usually respond to a challenge.
They can recall how capable they have been in the grand, set-piece fixtures. Chelsea have won all five of this season's league matches against Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. The 10-1 aggregate scoreline from those results confirms how resounding the superiority has been.
That dominance will worry United more than any fear that Liverpool, out of historic spite, will capitulate to Chelsea. Ambivalence, to put it mildly, will be the prevailing mood in the Anfield stands when the game starts but it is hard to imagine Rafael Benítez's players taking care not to try. Fanatical effort, after all, is the principal tone of the Premier League and sides can barely envisage any other means of engaging with one another.
Competition is a compulsion. As people have noted, Liverpool came perilously close to conducting the coronation of United when they beat Blackburn Rovers on the last afternoon of the season in 1995. In the event Sir Alex Ferguson's side ensured that the silverware went to Ewood Park because they were held to a draw by West Ham at Upton Park. Fifteen years ago Liverpool, who finished fourth, did not even have a European Cup place to pursue, since only the champions qualified then.
There is no cause to think that the present Liverpool squad will lack integrity against Chelsea on Sunday . With Manchester City, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur all in action afternoon, Liverpool's slight hope of a Champions League spot may almost have vanished before they grapple with Ancelotti's team but professional players will still want to show that their pride at least is intact.
If United have anything to dread at Anfield, it is simply the fact that Liverpool could lack the means to stop Chelsea. Last night's deserved elimination from the Europa League by Atlético Madrid, a side with better technique, demonstrated the decline of Benítez's squad. The Liverpool manager's suggestion that five new players are needed would have been questioned only by those who think it is a conservative estimate.
Steven Gerrard, understandably, looks worn down by a dependence upon him that became acute when Fernando Torres was struck down by a knee injury. The England midfielder has nine league goals this season and five of them were scored against sides in the bottom third of the table. Benítez will have well understood the danger of looking so often to Torres, Gerrard and, in a different fashion, Jamie Carragher to prop up the club.
It was always too much to ask but there is scarcely the glimmer of a suggestion that new ownership, let alone fresh transfer funding, is in sight. No matter how honest they are in their endeavours, Liverpool will probably look to be at a grave disadvantage on Sunday. In plain physiological terms Benítez's men should be overmatched. Those two draining hours against Atlético may be felt against Chelsea, particularly as the match enters its closing phase.
Benítez cannot do a great deal about that, since limited options are a major part of his club's malaise. Expectations were surely restricted when the forwards deployed as substitutes against Atlético Madrid were Nabil El Zhar and Dani Pacheco. The 23-year-old El Zhar joined Liverpool in the autumn of 2006 and his only goal to date came in a League Cup tie against Cardiff the following year.
At 19, Pacheco is in his first season at Anfield and it is entirely natural that he is yet to find the net – he has not started any of the six matches in which he has featured. David Ngog was on the bench against Atlético but Benítez had felt forced to give him a place there. The manager then decided that the French forward was still too affected by injury to be sent on to the pitch.
If Liverpool's prospects on Sunday depend on rotating their squad, Chelsea will be full of hope for a productive occasion. Over the years the Anfield side has waged many a war against the odds but a spectacular effort is now called for on a day when there will be scant reward for such pugnacity.
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on paper chelsea should have no problem beating liverpool.
but we know better than to expect that.
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Originally posted by dragg:
on paper chelsea should have no problem beating liverpool.
but we know better than to expect that.
but football is not played on paper. -
should be nice to watch..hopefully
good timing also
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everybody said spurs were there for the taking after their 120min lost to pompey on sunday, then they proved everyone wrong with 2 of their best displays against arsenal and chelsea.
now ppl are saying liverpool are tired ater their 120min loss to a madrid, so i don't buy it..
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Originally posted by stellazio:
everybody said spurs were there for the taking after their 120min lost to pompey on sunday, then they proved everyone wrong with 2 of their best displays against arsenal and chelsea.
now ppl are saying liverpool are tired ater their 120min loss to a madrid, so i don't buy it..
ya u never know the unpredictability of football matches.
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Originally posted by stellazio:
now ppl are saying liverpool are tired ater their 120min loss to a madrid, so i don't buy it..
only rafael said that