Liverpool 0-2 Cheisea; Tittle Race Blown Open
Demba Ba scores for
Chelsea after a mistake by Liverpool's Steven Gerrard, left, in the
Premier League game at Anfield. Photograph: Peter Powell/EPA
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.
Man of the match Tomas Kalas (Chelsea)
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.
Man of the match Tomas Kalas (Chelsea)
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