Today (Sunday 11th November 2012), Liverpool played Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. The game ended 1-1, with goals coming from John Terry and Luis Suarez. A minute’s silence was held before the game to remember all the soldiers who have given their lives in conflicts past and present.
The game started quite badly for Liverpool, with Chelsea dominating possession and making some incisive attacks. There were a few half chances, including a long shot from Daniel Agger which was blazed well over, but mostly Chelsea were on top. Sure enough, it was the home team who opened the scoring. The ball struck referee Howard Webb, which indirectly led to a Chelsea corner. The corner was whipped in well and defended poorly, and John Terry capitalised with a good header to put the home side in front. Shortly after this, Terry was stretchered off after a collision with Luis Suarez. From then on both sides sat back a little, with minimal action occurring for the rest of the half.
However, this all changed at the start of the second half. Both sides came out strongly, with Liverpool launching many attacks and coming close to scoring on a few occasions. In doing this though, Liverpool left themselves exposed to counter-attacks, and Fernando Torres came close to scoring against his former club on 2 or 3 occasions. On the 60 minute mark, Brendan Rodgers decided to make a change, Suso coming on for Sahin. This made a big impact, and Liverpool slowly began to take charge of the game. LFC kept piling on the pressure, and it finally paid off in the 73rd minute. Suso whipped a corner in, Carragher flicked it on brilliantly, and Luis Suarez was on hand to header it in from close range, his 8th goal of the season.
From here-on-in, Liverpool really dominated. They made a few decent opportunities, but didn’t create a big chance to win it until the 88th minute. Suarez raced on to a through ball, beating the offside trap, and found himself one on one with an advancing Petr Cech. He tried to take it round the oncoming keeper, but Cech just managed to get a leg to the ball, keeping the two sides level. It seemed that the action would be over at this point, but it was not so. Deep into the 4 minutes of added time, Suarez released Enrique with a great ball, who’s shot was saved very well indeed by Cech. This proved to be some of the last action of the game, with the full time whistle blowing less than a minute later.
Before the game I would certainly have taken a point against this in-form Chelsea side, but based on our performance today I was a little disappointed with the draw. We did well to only concede one under the first half pressure of Chelsea (thanks in part to Brad Jones, who had a pretty good game), and came out very strongly in the second. Our goal was very good, but Suarez should really have buried the winner when he got through against Cech. Overall though, I am very pleased with the point. Liverpool have now gone six premier league games undefeated, which is certainly a step in the right direction. A draw away to Chelsea is an achievement Brendan Rodgers and the team can be very proud of, and I hope we build on this solid performance in next week’s game against Wigan.
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