Liverpool Have It All To Do At Anfield

Credit to Chelsea, they deserved the victory tonight. Liverpool were shaky in parts, lacking defensively in the first half (and defending like mad in the second half) and just couldn’t get the attacking chances in.

Role-wise, Crouch should have been on from the very start working with Craig Bellamy, Liverpool lost too many attacking opportunities for lacking height in the box going forward. Zenden was a lost cause on the left side, Drogba had the best of Agger at every stage and only for Pepe Reina the scoreline would be extremely different tonight.

The fact that the scoreline sits at 1-0 puts all the pressure on at Chelsea as they couldn’t get the second goal tonight. Liverpool need to come out all guns blazing at Anfield next Tuesday night, get Finnan back into the action if possible (Arbeloa nearly blew it with a handball), get Zenden off the pitch and sort out the front line from the get go. The passes were good when they came but there was really no massive threat from Liverpool inside the Chelsea box.

Mourinho made a comment yesterday about Liverpool putting the run on Drogba, forcing him into yellow cards.

I swear to God, that chap doesn’t deserve to play in the Premier League let alone the Champions League. Sure enough he caused Liverpool all kinds of trouble tonight but he spent almost as much time lying on the ground as he did standing up and he’s going to do exactly the same thing next week for the return leg. Liverpool had a perfect attacking opportunity on the right wing early on in the second half but Drogba decides to play the lady and lie down in the box after a clash with Jon Obi Mikel. Get up off your arse will you!!!

End of the day, Liverpool didn’t produce a classy performance at all and have it all to do at Anfield where I hope things will certainly be an awful lot different.

Oh yeah… the goal? Joe Cole on around 28 minutes or so. Drogba the provider, squared for Joe Cole in the box who had more than enough pace after a good sprint to rifle past a helpless Reina into the centre of the net.

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