Caught in Chelsea’s Webb- Liverpool Slip to Second Consecutive Defeat

Liverpool went into the game at Stamford Bridge with a relatively high level of confidence- despite coming into the game on the back of a defeat against City, we had performed well in that game and felt that we had the ability to beat Chelsea. History was also in our favour; previous to this fixture Liverpool had never lost two consecutive games under Brendan Rodgers, and Chelsea had not defeated us in the league since 2009/10. Unfortunately it just wasn’t our day- both of these runs were broken as Liverpool ended up losing 2-1.

It all started so well. Martin Skrtel, who has come under fire a lot recently for his error-prone nature (and all-round inability to function particularly effectively as a centre-back) opened the scoring after just three minutes, poking the ball, for once, into the correct goal! Sadly, that was pretty much it in terms of Liverpool attacks in the first half. From then on it was all Chelsea; the reds didn’t look their usual selves at all, getting completely dominated. Chelsea pressed well and got their reward on 17 minutes- Hazard equalising with a lovely curled effort after the ball fell kindly for him. Despite my hopes this did not provoke a reaction from Liverpool. We continued to sit back, and on 34 minutes were punished again, Eto’o firing home after a catalogue of defensive errors (as well as a weak attempt at a save from Mignolet). For the last 10 minutes of the half Liverpool seemed fractionally improved, but still lacked any sort of attacking potency.

A lot of the game was sadly much more focused on the officiating than the football being played. I thought we’d been very hard done by at City- this was even worse! The referee, Howard Webb, didn’t exactly cover himself in glory in the first half, not even showing a card to Samuel Eto’o after he tackled Henderson, studs showing, inside the first minute. He should have been off, but nobody thought too much of it at the time as Skrtel scored from the subsequent free kick.

Things only got worse in the second period, with Webb seemingly determined not to give Luis Suarez a penalty. Personally I think Suarez has cleaned up his act a lot lately; he seems to go down much less easily than he used to, and in general seems to have a more relaxed, civil demeanour about him. Officials don’t seem to have picked up on this, and consequently his reputation as a diver still goes before him. The first incident was from a corner- John Terry (incidentally playing his 600^th game for Chelsea) jumped on top of him, completely preventing Suarez from jumping for the ball and bundling him to the ground in the process. Webb was placed well to see the incident but gave nothing- a blatantly unjust decision. The second was even worse: Suarez was involved again, this time getting fouled by the man who should already have been off, Eto’o. Cesar Azpilicueta had just done well to dispossess Suarez, then Eto’o came across and knocked Suarez to the ground right in front of Webb’s nose. Unbelievably he gave nothing, and Chelsea went on to retain their 1 goal lead and win the game.

These weren’t the only two refereeing decisions I was aggrieved at. Oscar dived multiple times during the match, and was never once punished for it. He later committed a clearly bookable offence on Lucas, so he should have been off the pitch. Willian also totted up about 6 fouls early in the game without any reprimand. That said, Liverpool were by no means at their best. Though the referee has to shoulder a large portion of the blame for the result, we could have played much better, and at the end of the day the two penalty shouts would have been inconsequential if we could have scored more from open play.

To sum up, I’m very frustrated about the defeat and am angry at Howard Webb for his awful decision-making, but I don’t think we can complain too much seeing as the players were also at great fault. Fortunately this is only one game, and this defeat is by no means, as some reactionaries are dubbing it, ‘the end of our season’. The next game is against Hull on New Years Day- onwards and upwards.

-James Martin

Follow me on Twitter @JamesMartin013