As kicks up the backside go, this one couldn’t have been any more pointed. And while hardly convincing, it at least allayed some of the pain being felt by Liverpool’s rear in recent times.
Jurgen Klopp could explain it away by referring to the need for fresh legs and rotation with this visit to Stamford Bridge the second of three pivotal games in nine days.
Yet the Liverpool boss was betrayed by his own pre-match words when stating the need for “new ideas” from his team. After three successive defeats sent a seemingly interminable season plummeting towards fresh depths, the Reds had become stale in both mind and body.
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Particularly in defence. Virgil van Dijk, missing through illness, could easily have in any case joined full-backs Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold in being axed from the starting line-up as Klopp ran out of patience with a backline that has been coughing up big chances and leaking costly goals at an alarming rate, culminating in the second-half surrender at Manchester City on Saturday.
It was a qualified success. Of those coming in, Joe Gomez was defensively solid at right-back – and even forced Kepa Arrizabalaga into a save first half – and while Joel Matip was at his most unconventional, he just about got the job done.
The same, though, couldn’t be said of Kostas Tsimikas, whose brace of early errors set the tone for an absolute stinker. Robertson had been introduced in place of the Greek long before the final whistle.
Nevertheless, this overall was a step in the right direction, albeit with the sizeable caveat it came against a Chelsea side whose dire finishing highlighted the lack of firepower ultimately cost Graham Potter his job at the weekend. Only two of their players have scored more than three times this season. It’s now April.
When the home side did find a way through, Alisson Becker twice saved from Kai Havertz at close range – the second rebounding into the goal off the forward’s arm for the second of two disallowed goals for the Londoners.
A draw at Stamford Bridge will always be a decent result, even if the lack of quality in the fourth successive goalless stalemate between the sides underlined why this was eighth against 11th.
But Klopp’s defensive gamble just about paid off. Now not all those who missed out can expect to walk straight back in for the visit of Arsenal on Sunday.
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