Full-time: Chelsea 1-2 Liverpool
That’s a deserved victory for Liverpool and an alarming performance for Chelsea. It was a different type of victory to Liverpool’s other ones this season, a more mature one. They were sharper, stronger and more inventive than Chelsea but also more canny when push came to shove. Klopp will be heartened, too, by the display of Henderson, who did all the unheralded stuff better than the more vaunted Kanté and then crowned that with a superb winning goal. Liverpool are on the march. Chelsea are on their way back to the drawing board.
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90+2 min: Chelsea corner .... terrible delivery!
90+1 min: Liverpool fans start belting out You’ll Never Walk Alone. They are obediently refraining from serenading Jurgen Klopp.
90 min: The fourth official indicates that Liverpool must hold out for at least three more minutes.
Liverpool substitution: Stewart on, Wijnaldum off.
89 min: David Luiz looked like he was going to take the freekick - and what a story that could have been! But instead Fabregas dabbed it feebly into the wall - and what a let-down that was!
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88 min: Here’s danger! A clumsy challenge by Lucas allows Hazard to throw himself over his leg and win a freekick at the edge of the Liverpool box. Lucas is booked, but are Liverpool about to be sickened even further?
87 min: Moses gets his head down and runs down the wing like a bull in Pamplona. Then, unlike any bull, he delivers a sweet low cross. But Henderson is well positioned and clears.
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85 min: Lucas wins possession in midfield and knocks the ball on to Mané. The Senegalese supplies Origi. But David Luiz ushers the Belgian away from the area before stepping in and taking the ball. Good defending.
Chelsea substitutions: Moses, Pedro and Fabregas on, Matic, Willian and Oscar off.
Liverpool substitution: Lucas on, Coutinho off
81 min: Milner drills in a cross from the left after a fine through-ball from Coutinho. Ivanovic gets his head on it but only manages to deviate the ball slightly. It flies across to the back post, where Origi rises well and applies a firm downward header, forcing a fine save from Courtois.
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80 min: That game management we talked about? Liverpool have shown it in the last few minutes and got the initiative back. And Chelsea have gone quite saggy again.
79 min: Coutinho collects a low cross from the right. He spins and shoots from 16 yards, but Cahill gets in a good block.
77 min: Excellent sliding tackle by Wijnaldun to strip the ball off Willian in midfield and get Liverpool back on the front foot. The move eventually leads to Clyne sending over a good cross from the right, but Coutinho never looked like winning it.
75 min: William drives in a low cross. Lovren sticks out a leg to divert it skywards. Mignolet rushes off his line to catch it as it drops.
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73 min: Mané fouls Ivanovic, a sure sign the tide is turning. Chelsea take the freekick quickly (another sign), but Mané gets back to regain possession before being fouled (the tide hasn’t yet turned completely).
@Paul_Doyle Any chance we could get Jürgen to manage the first halves and Rafa in for the 2nd? We need to learn how to manage games.
— Michael Graham (@michaelgraham84) September 16, 2016
70 min: Actually, Coutinho made a dummy run and Milner delivered the freekick. Ivanovic headed it behind at the near post. And Courtois caught the subsequent in-swinging corner.
69 min: Strong play by Henderson to win the ball back and sustain a Liverpool attack. Ivanovic then barges into Milner to concede a freekick wide on the left. Coutinho prepares to deliver ...
67 min: Close from Costa, who was allowed to swivel and shoot from 14 yards! But it was straight at Mignolet, who held it at the second attempt.
65 min: This is an interesting test for Liverpool now. They seemed in full control until the goal and now they have to demonstrate their ability to wrestle it back from a Chelsea team who are suddenly embiggened. This is the sort of scenario where Liverpool start to wonder whether they have a top-class midfield manager.
64 min: Freekick to Chelsea wide on the left. Hazard delivers. Mignolet clears, catching Ivanovic as he does so.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-2 Liverpool (Costa 62)
A bolt from the blue! Matic did brilliantly, showing hitherto unseen nimbleness to jink his way past Lallana to the byline and cut the ball back to Costa, who stabbed the ball into the net at the near post. Suddenly a comeback looks possible!
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60 min: Liverpool spend a minute doing soft-shoe shuffles around the Chelsea box, as if to taunt the hosts with their nimbleness. Especially Ivanovic.
Liverpool substitution: Origin on, Sturridge off. Recognition by Klopp that Chelsea are spending more time in Liverpool territory and are therefore more vulnerable to the counterattack.
57 min: Ivanovic joins the attacking and delivers a cross from the right. IT goes all the way over to Hazard on the far side of the box. He takes a touch and then prepares to shoot, but Mané hurtles back to get in his way, so Hazard elects to pass instead. Eventually the attack fizzles out.
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55 min: David Luiz digs out a decent long ball into the channel. Costa chases and wins it. Then he feeds it back to Hazard as Chelsea attempt to build a move of some import - but it’s at such a pedestrian pace that Liverpool are able to funnel back and avert any danger.
52 min: A Chelsea move broke down in the Liverpool half just now and three of their players, including Kanté, just ambled after the ball as Liverpool came away with it. It’s an extraordinarily listless performance. Perhaps they’re jaded from their midweek exertions in the Champions Lea... ah, no, that’s not it.
50 min: Chelsea give the ball away around their own area. Sturridge feeds Coutinho, who tries to get off a shot from 20 yards. Blocked.
48 min: Ivanovic, picking up where he left off in the first half, commits a foul. No sign yet that Conte’s half-time speech was heard by anyone in blue. “Jordan Henderson: it’s all in the gait, you know,” quips Ken Coogan.
47 min: It’s surprising that Conte didn’t make any substitutions at half-time. Although having said that, it’s a drastic change of attitude that’s needed, more than a change in personnel.
46 min: The second half is starting. Let’s hope someone has told Chelsea.
“I’m a Spurs fan,” admits Michael Phelps to the group. “Liverpool totally dominated us earlier this season. How we got a point is up there with immaculate conception. There is nothing to like about Chelsea.” Except Diego Costa, obviously
“Jordan Henderson is one of those players to whom the phrase ‘not a great scorer of goals, but a scorer of great goals’ is starting to apply,” ventures Tom Yates. It’s true and, in that sense at least, he’s like a great Liverpool midfielder of yesteryear: Ronnie Whelan.
“Two goals down and his nose literally and metaphorically bloodied: That’s quite a first 45 minutes for David Luiz on his second coming for Chelsea!” laughs Justin Kavanagh. But David Luiz isn’t the main culprit here: Ivanovic and Cahill have been worse at the back and, indeed, Courtois set the tone with some inexplicably poor handling in the opening minutes. Hazard and Costa have seldom been involved and Kanté is struggling to cope by himself in midfield.
Half-time: Chelsea 0-2 Liverpool
That was astonishingly one-sided, all the more so because Liverpool have not even had to be at their best. The visitors have been in charge all over the pitch. They’ve been sharper, stronger and more in tune with each other. Chelsea don’t need a dressing room at half-time, they need one of Clarke Kent’s phone boxes. Unless there is a dramatic transformation, Liverpool are going home with three points here and a sweet, sweet feeling.
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45 min: Freekick to Liverpool about 28 yards out. Coutinho shapes to shoot but Henderson flips it wide to Lallana instead. The move breaks down and Chelsea try to launch a counter. Henderson charges across to put an end to that scheme. This is shaping up to be his best game for Liverpool in a long time. You could say he’s been Kanté-esque except you’d never find Kanté scoring a goal like the one Henderson produced.
43 min: Henderson releases Mané down the right with a measured pass. That’s the start of some mesmeric Liverpool interplay that concludes with Henderson slipping another pass through to Coutinho just inside the Chelsea box. The Brazilian is crowded out before he can inflict further damage. But you sense it won’t be long until Liverpool are frolicking round those parts again. Chelsea are utterly flaccid.
41 min: This Chelsea performance is exactly the tonic Jose Mourinho needed after last night’s woes in Rotterdam.
39 min: David Luiz gets his head to a Chelsea corner but can only but the ball over the bar.
@Paul_Doyle How long until Kante starts to regret having left the champions and playing in Europe for this dull Chelsea team?
— Daniel Chernilo (@danielchernilo) September 16, 2016
GOAL! Chelsea 0-2 Liverpool (Henderson 36)
That’s a magnificent goal by the Liverpool captain! Cahill poked the ball off Lallana’s foot, but Henderson was well positioned to collect it. Then he sized up the distance to goal and curled a sumptuous dipping shot right into the top corner! That’s a helluva response to his critics! If Chelsea don’t wake up now, they could be well and truly clobbered.
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35 min: Chelsea are coming back into the game slightly, insofar as they’re playing a little more in the opposing half now. But it’s still too ponderous to fluster Liverpool.
33 min: Freekick to Chelsea from a similar position to the one that led to Liverpool’s goal and, indeed, to ones from which William has previously scored. Up steps the Brazilian again, curling the ball towards the penalty spot. David Luiz gets his head to it ... but didn’t realised that he’d walked into Liverpool’s offside trap.
31 min: Willian wins a corner. Chelsea send up the big men. Cahill wins it but it cannons off the back of a Liverpool player. David Luiz nods it back into the six-yard box, where Mignolet does a Superman dive but fails to make a strong connection with his first. Panic momentarily breaks out, but then the ref blows to signal that Matic had intefered with the keeper.
30 min: If Chelsea are going to play this slowly and be so casual off the ball, then they might as well throw on Fabregas, who can at least pick out a cutting pass when allowed to play at a leisurely pace.
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27 min: Hazard, who has hardly been involved so far, receives a pass on the eft wing and skedaddles towards the Liverpool area. He smashes a low ball across the face of goal. Mignolet dives on it. But the hint of danger is enough to encourage the home crowd, who crank the volume up to about three.
24 min: Liverpool remain comfortably on top. They find Sturridge in space down the left after Chelsea take a quick snooze while Liverpool take a throw-in. Sturridge does a couple of stepovers in front of Ivanovic and then tries to drill the ball into the far corner from an acute angle. It’s fiercely struck but wide.
21 min: A break in play so that David Luiz can receive treatment for a bloody nose following an accidental clash of heads with Mané. I dare say Conte will be banging a few heads at half-time if this continues. “A little bit of Conte’s Italian soul just died at the sight of his team leaving three men unmarked at the far post for the Lovren goal,” chortles Pradeek Chatha.
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19 min: The goal does not appear to have woken Chelsea up yet. Liverpool are still busier and brighter.
GOAL! Chelsea 0-1 Liverpool (Lovren 17)
After Ivanovic’s foul, Liverpool take a quick short freekick. Coutinho then flighted a ball to the far side of the box, where several Liverpool players were waiting, unperturbed by any defenders. Lovren guided a volley into the net from six yards! A lovely finish by the Croatian, and woeful defending by Chelsea!
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17 min: Ivanovic is an oaf mode tonight. He’s lucky not to be booked already.
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15 min: David Luiz pings a superb ball from deep over the head of Clyne and on to the foot of Hazard. It could have come to something if Hazard hadn’t been offside.
13 min: Henderson’s corner is cleared. Liverpool win it back after a bout of ping-pong outside the Chelsea box. Henderson re-appears to crack a half-volley from 25 yards way over the bar.
12 min: Liverpool have penned Chelsea back for the last few minutes. That, perhaps, does not overly bother Conte, who may be happy to see his team drop deep and deny space for the visitors to run behind them.
9 min: Tension is high and the pace is slightly slower than expected but both sides’ attacking purpose is clear.
7 min: Ivanovic concedes a freekick for a needless foul on Lallana near the Chelsea corner flag on the left. It was a sore one, if the reaction of Lallana is anything to go by. But Liverpool fail to exact retribution from the freekick, which is cleared by the first defender.
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5 min: Matic spanks a fine crossfield ball to Hazard on the left. The Belgian shimmies and then offloads to Azpilicueta, whose cross is headed away by Lovren.
3 min: Sturridge fires off the first shot of the match, a decent curler from 20 yards. It should be easy pickings for Courtois but he makes a meal of it and it squirms under his body. But he got enough of a touch on it to take off most of the pace so was able to turn around and pick up the ball before it crossed the line. It was enough of a booboo, however, to confirm that there are two dodgy Belgian keepers on the pitch.
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2 min: Willian makes a dangerous burst from midfield, that rapid short-stepped acceleration of his taking him away from two opponents. But Henderson gets back to dispossess him on the edge of the area.
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1 min: We have kickoff. Chelsea complete the formality with aplomb. Have they peaked too early?
Here come the teams and isn’t it swell to see tradition being upheld: Chelsea are in blue, Liverpool are in red, the officials are in black and, er, the ball is a white, pink, green and blue.
Managers' pre-match thoughts:
Antonio Conte says: “We’ve worked during the week with David Luiz. We took him to play like a centreback so, yeah, tonight he has a chance to play.” Not what you’d call gushing, eh?
Jurgen Klopp says: “Firmino has a very little issue with a muscle that you usually don’t need … but nobody could give me a guarantee that he could play … we have a little lack of physicality without Roberto, who’s our first real defender, so everybody has to work a little harder to compensate for this.” You listening, Daniel Sturridge?
Sky Sports pundits reckons David Luiz should be dropped for tweeting (the below tweet) so soon before kick. But surely it was a flunky what done it? Mind you, I’ll not argue with anyone who wants to punish people for tweeting banalities (yes, since you ask, whenever I tweet it changes someone’s life).
Keep calm and start the countdown: 30 minutes! #DL30 #DavidLuiz #Chelsea #PremierLeague #ContagemRegressiva30minutos pic.twitter.com/wD4GTMQGR9
— David Luiz (@DavidLuiz_4) September 16, 2016
Lots of emails asking for the lineups: what you need to do instead of giving me grief is scroll down the page to where the lineups are printed. And press refresh if you haven’t already done so in the last 45 minutes.
According to stats being shown on Sky Sports to fill dead air, Liverpool have made 2,346 sprints so far this season and Chelsea have made 1,953. And that’s just the managers. Badoom-tish!
“So the teams are in and (assuming David Luiz is not being controlled by the teenager with an X-Box controller) they look pretty even,” pipes up Brendan Large. “However, look at the subs and you’d have to give Chelsea the edge if changing the game is necessary.” Fair comment, I’d say, although Origi could certainly make an impact and young Grujic looks destined for great things: seems only a matter of time before he makes his mark for Liverpool).
“Surely this is the game Costa gets sent off?” bellows Jesse Davies. “He’s been trying so hard this season and deserves to see red for his endeavours.” As a kind of lifetime achievement award? It’s an idea but, in fairness, Costa has been more sinned against than sinner this season. Man gets little protection from referees. Good thing he can handle himself. Tonight’s referee, by the way, seldom sends players off: none so far this season and only one last season.
Chelsea’s two matches after this one are away to Leicester (in the League Cup) and Arsenal. Safe to say, then, that by the end of September we’ll have a much clearer idea of how likely Conte’s team are to win the title.
Emre Can, you’ll have noted, is still not available for Liverpool so there is an opportunity for Jordan Henderson to get the better of Kanté. Do that and he’ll find himself newly appreciated around Anfield.
The teams are in (and listed in full below) and the big news is that David Luiz starts for Chelsea and Sturridge starts for Liverpool, possibly because Firmino has suffered a minor groin strain. Sturridge tends not to start the big away game for Klopp so this is a another chance for him to show that that policy should be adjusted for the long term: to do that his work off the ball will have to be as good as his magic on it. Cesc Fabregas, meanwhile, doesn’t get another chance to make a similar point: hes on bench duty.
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Preamble:
Hello and thank you for coming: you’ll not be disappointed, at least not by Chelsea and Liverpool. Meetings between these clubs tend to produce thrills, drama, and enough talking points to keep chins wagging as furiously as Diego Costa’s finger. From a lesson for “wee cocky southern buggers” to a ghost goal and a historic slip, something extraordinary always seems to happen when these two get together and if you don’t believe us, then check out this wonderful little guide by Scott Murray. It’ll be a surprise if two stylish teams packed with (and managed by) characters straight out of vaudeville do not add to that rich history today. And Chelsea will go top of the league if they win. Liverpool also have serious title ambitions. This match is both teams’ biggest test of the season so far.
Liverpool have already scored four goals at Arsenal this season, should have scored four at Tottenham and could score four at Chelsea. They attack in rapid bursts that can bedazzle even the best defenders, a description that sometimes applies to David Luiz. The Brazilian is expected to make his second Chelsea debut tonight in the absence of John Terry, and Liverpool will be sure to try to rattle him bearing in mind that two years in Paris have not made him any less prone to sudden lapses of reason: in his last match for PSG, just last month, he conceded a penalty by performing a WWE move on a Monaco forward. There’s no telling how he’ll react to Sadio Mané & Co rushing him.
But there’s more than a suspicion of vulnerability to Liverpool’s defence, too, and no better man than Costa to find out whether Joel Matip is really as cool as he has appeared in his first few outings in England. What is more, you can be sure that the shrewd tactician Antonio Conte will have devised a ploy for exploiting uncertainty in Liverpool’s left-back area. Such as getting Willian or Eden Hazard to attack it: yeah, it doesn’t necessarily take anything complicated to get behind this Liverpool defence. Meanwhile in midfield, a zone that Liverpool tend to treat like those yellow boxes on English roads – somewhere to travel through without dawdling – much will depend on the extent to which N’Golo Kanté can disrupt Liverpool’s flow and give Chelsea a platform. In short, there’s intrigue all over the pitch in a match that will teach us a lot about each of these teams. We’ll bring you the full lineups as soon as they’re available: in the meantime, best stock up on popcorn and suds.
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Teams:
Chelsea: Courtois; Ivanovic, Cahill, David Luiz, Azpilicueta; Kanté; Willian, Oscar, Matic, Hazard; Costa.
Subs: Begovic, Aina, Marcos Alonso, Fabregas, Pedro, Moses, Batshuayi
Liverpool: Mignolet; Clyne, Matip, Lovren, Milner; Henderson, Wijnaldum, Lallana; Coutinho, Mané, Sturridge
Subs: Karius, Lucas, Stewart, Origi, Moreno, Grujic, Ejaria
Referee: M Atkinson
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