Liverpool 2, Chelsea 0: Victory at a Cost

By: Noel | November 29th, 2011

Chelsea 0
Liverpool 2 Maxi Rodriguez 58′, Martin Kelly 63′

In the end, a well-deserved win at Stamford Bridge—the second in ten days—sees Liverpool join Cardiff and Manchester City in the semi-finals of the League Cup, with Manchester United set to take on Crystal Palace for the last open slot on Wednesday. However, another strong showing, one that for long stretches saw Liverpool top even their previous performance against Chelsea, will have to share billing with the day’s other major story: An injury to Lucas Leiva that saw the midfielder stretchered off on 69 minutes after taking a blow to the knee.

Until then, Lucas had turned in his second man of the match-calibre performance in a row. Once again the best player on the pitch for either club, after dominating Silva, Nasri, and Toure of Manchester City on Sunday afternoon he made it his personal mission to frustrate Fernando Torres at every turn. Together with solid performances from both Jamie Carragher and Sebastian Coates at the back after each had a handful of nervy moments to open the match, Liverpool’s solid defensive base left Chelsea frustrated and ineffective for long stretches.

Meanwhile in attack, Maxi Rodriguez was solid at both ends of the pitch yet again, arguing one more time that he deserves a more regular role than he’s seen so far this season and contributing not only Liverpool’s winning goal but also a solid showing in defence. Elsewhere, Martin Kelly started out looking rusty after a long injury layoff but grew in confidence as the match progressed and capped his night by scoring his first ever goal at the senior level, a header from Craig Bellamy’s free kick after the Liverpool attacker had drawn the foul.

As for Bellamy, he was a bundle of energy for 79 minutes, setting up both Liverpool goals and putting in an impassioned performance after looking shaken during the tribute to Gary Speed that marked the start of the match.

Despite the squad’s generally solid performance, however, it wasn’t all positives for Liverpool, and after once again failing to covert possession into chances and chances into goals in the first half, the second began with a reinvigorated Chelsea side determined to make Liverpool pay for their wastefulness. With Liverpool winning the midfield battle on the back of Lucas’ stellar performance, with Jay Spearing slotted alongside him as capably as he had to end the 2010-11 season while Maxi and Jordan Henderson moved inside and Craig Bellamy dropped deep, possession had slanted heavily in favour of the visiting club throughout the first half. Unfortunately, this too often only led to long, aimless balls floated towards Andy Carroll’s head.

For the most part it would be hard to fault Carroll’s showing on the day given the supply, though for those seeking more reason to doubt the big number nine it will have been a performance that while energetic lacked any real cutting edge. He may not have played poorly, and his workrate and willingness to get back to help in defence when midfielders found themselves stuck in the attacking zone has to be commended, yet that he still seems a largely awkward fit ten months after he arrived at his new club cannot be entirely ignored.

When Carroll, somewhat surprisingly, stepped up to take the penalty Liverpool was awarded when Alex raised his arm to handle a Jose Enrique cross 21 minutes into the match, it was one more moment for redemption—or to bolster the chorus of doubters. In the end, that he sent his shot straight at Ross Turnbull so hard the Chelsea keeper—who guessed to his right—didn’t have time to get out of the way, making the save despite himself, seemed destined to haunt Liverpool.

It likely would have, too, without standout performances from Lucas, Coates, and Reina to keep a surging Chelsea off the scoresheet early in the second. Then, as it was against Chelsea in the league the week before, a series of quick, smart passes would send Liverpool on the break with the home side committed upfield, relieving the pressure and winning the match for the visitors. Jay Spearing began the move, picking out Jordan Henderson near the half-way line, and with Chelsea’s defenders scrambling back David Luiz played Craig Bellamy onside as Henderson sent him charging down the right channel. After that, it was a relatively simple low cross to an unmarked Maxi to sidefoot home, and all of a sudden Liverpool had the lead their play likely deserved—but also the one they had seemed increasingly unlikely to get.

Minutes later, Bellamy would set up Martin Kelly’s goal, and the game seemed well won—another good day for a Liverpool side that has looked increasingly convincing in recent weeks, and one more reason to wonder if Andre Villas-Boas has any chance of surviving an entire season at Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea. Much of the shine would soon come off the day, however, with Lucas clashing with Juan Mata, leaving the Liverpool player’s knee bloodied as he lay on the pitch. He would try to brush it off, receiving treatment on the sidelines before jogging back on, but he would only make it about twenty yards before signalling for a change and immediately collapsing.

In the end, he was carried off the pitch on a stretcher, clearly in pain, while Chelsea fans jeered and booed. The travelling Kop would counter with ringing renditions of You’ll Never Walk Alone, tributes to Gary Speed, and Maxi Rodriguez’ infectious theme song as Stamford Bridge began to empty with ten minutes left in the game. Still, despite the joy at leaving London for the second time in ten days with a win over Chelsea and a spot in the League Cup semi-finals secured, a potentially serious injury to one of the club’s most important players can’t help but put a damper on the day’s otherwise positive results.

Some Related Liverpool Posts:

Category: League Cup, Match Recaps

« Matchday: Liverpool v. Chelsea | Home | Lucas Concerns Grow as Liverpool Recall Jonjo Shelvey »

friss ander

Martin Kelly started out looking rusty after a long
injury layoff but grew in confidence as the match progressed and capped
his night by scoring his first ever goal at the senior level, a header
from Craig Bellamy’s free kick after the Liverpool attacker had drawn
the foul.
alex_snow2

Pablo Zabaleta (Dunno how reliable a source he is) said on twitter that Lucas ruptured his meniscus. Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad
sixer

Elite athletes return to practice within one to two weeks after surgery, but they are a motivated group of people who spend hours each day in rehabilitation. For most other patients, return to mild routine activity occurs in less than six weeks.
medicine.net

This would be best case scenario
poorscouserbobby

meniscus tears aren't bad. (considering)
Purify_the_body

No, Zabaleta said torn *cruciate* plus meniscus -- much worse. :(
heitz11

Given our upcoming opponents, as long as Lucas isn't out for several months I think we can afford to have Spearing and Charlie Adam in the backline. It gives Adam the opportunity to take a leadership role and show he knows how to play defense.
Guest

Funny i Use to Be the Fan that was "Song is better than Lucas" Then thats when
Song played Beastly in the Champs League Aginst B-Dortmond, Then Lucas Said
"Anythg you can do i can do better" i want Lucas hands Down now lol btw
Liverpool Lets get Kagawa he amazing
Travis Artz

Please post any updates about Lucas injury if possible. TIA
Noel

Nothing but rumours so far. Most of them bad, as is the way with rumours of this sort. But still, nothing but rumours.
PatrickTheRed

I don't like jumping on players backs, but Carroll does just as much damage to our team when even trying to help out. Gutted about Lucas he's the best holding midfielder in England.
GerrardsBoxingCoach

Matches like these highlight what makes supporters of this club special. A culture of unwavering match-day support I think is observed by a higher percentage of LFC fans than at at least any other EPL club (Stoke quite possibly excepted). Obviously, every club has their core of true supporters who, in spite of their pitiable association with those other clubs, nevertheless deserve respect, and of course some (many) wankers do make it into Anfield in LFC kits, but I think that the support LFC attracts viewed as a whole very genuinely is special. I'm sure many people would consider the pride so many supporters take in this club to be a kind of arrogance, and maybe it is-- but so what? That unabashed pride, paired with an unwillingness to allow the history of the club to be forgotten or disrespected, is the very thing that can ensure that new supporters coming into the club continue to uphold the same high standard of support from wherever they may watch matches.

I'm not exactly a native son of the Kop, and I know that at least some Scousers would prefer foreign fans keep their distance from LFC, but I will say that the pride the local support has in their club DOES rub off on and influence the support the club has garnered abroad. Wankers will be wankers, but supporters like those at stAnfield Bridge today do us all proud. I don't get goosebumps for anything like I get them for this club when the passion of its supporters becomes, as it did today, an irresistible force. I'm proud to call myself a Red today, but every other day too.
Latortillablanca

kinda hard to go through the emotional extremes i just went through having not watched the game... "WE WON AGAIN!!!! FUCKIN MAXI AN KELLY????!!" an then "No. NO. no-no-no-no-no-NO!!!!! Sweet Baby Lord, Not LUCAS LEIVA!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO" (cue melodramatically throwing oneself on the floor and pounding the tiles with fists)

will be inneresting to c how kenny replaces him - he doesnt really seem to have toooo much trust in spearing, but he's the obvious next man up. perhaps the king puts hendo back there, tho...

hope its not for long; just as he was really gelling with adam, as well... who watched it? was it a nasty angle type situation where its obviously a ligament or just a nasty clash, bone-bruise type thing?
jpr

I just watched it again in slow motion about 20 times. It is a clash of knees, but it's from the side and you can definitely see Lucas's leg buckle in at the knee with Mata's full force and body weight applied to the side of Lucas's knee. Began as a knee clash that turned into a nasty angle type situation in the blink of an eye. The knee/leg is in a slight "C" position and the force puts it into a "reverse C". Lucas's entire body weight is on his left leg as it is getting bent. Mata never sees him, he's just turning to run with the ball. Lucas comes at Mata from the side. The knee clash opened up a gash, but that looked to be the least of it. I would guess a ligament strain at the very least. Maybe a torn ligament, but I'm guessing it was only strained. Very Nasty. My "guess" is 2 to 3 weeks minimum. We'll see today or maybe tomorrow when he gets the scan. Again, I would guess they will wait a day or two to be sure before releasing bad news.
AustinRed

Looked more the latter (the bone-bruising knock sort of thing), but as I've been assured by many who've suffered such injuries, that doesn't necessarily mean anything, nor does his ability to walk on it immediately after it happened. Could still have damaged a ligament [fingers crossed].
Geoff Twentyman

I took a whack on my kneecap and it was the longest recovery I've had to go through bar a tear of my hip abductor muscle.

I was out for 16 weeks due to the soft tissue damage behind the knee.
fiji bill

Let's hope you've got weaker knees than the average EPL holding midfielder then...
Purify_the_body

Liam Tomkins: "Lucas left Stamford Bridge on crutches and was visibly in pain. I'm going to say that's ligament damage, but we'll see."

:(
ChrisLFC

It was an awkward challenge he actually initiated....think he caught a cleat and went down. There was a cut on his knee and it didn't look horrible at the time, but he wasn't doing well after he tried to go again. We'll see, just keeping all fingers, toes, etc crossed.
Yann

Yeah, into the semis. I'm so happy, I wanna dance ... with
Caroline Wozniacki. Our lovely ambassador is all kinds of wonderful. Yum! Don't
we just have the best fans in the world?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Purify_the_body

Nice write-up.

Lucas tweeted "Well done everyone tonight. I will have the scan to see how bad is my injury... Just send positives energy and I hope won't be to bad." So I guess we will wait until tomorrow.

About the game, I thought we looked incredibly cohesive for changing so many players and having so little time to prepare. Everyone is looking purposeful and comfortable in their roles. It's so great to see and you have to give Kenny a lot of credit. He is not perfect, but he is doing the work of organizing and inspiring these players and coaches well and that is a big reason why we took Chelsea down twice.

It was especially a big relief to see such an assured performance from the back four. Kelly seems to keep improving with no loss of focus. Coates looked calm and confident. And Carragher showed he is a good soldier with his recent comments and performance. We may need them all before the season's finished.

Bellamy was brilliant, of course. Another stellar performance has me wondering how long he can keep carrying water for his fellow attackers. We need another quality striker badly at this point. It's not giving up on Carroll to look for another player with pace and intelligent movement on a par with Bellamy and Suarez.
Mekusdagamga

Errrr Maxi?
Latortillablanca

ya i agree - loan move for tevez? ;)
Purify_the_body

he he...I was thinking more like sending Comolli and a couple suitcases full of money to Porto Alegre and telling him not to come back without Leandro Damião :)
Latortillablanca

that wud def be the end of andy carroll as a red... damiao is the truth - brazilian AND huge, yes please. i'd go for the double dip from inter with him and oscar...
NotTooXabi

Bellamy was stellar....Stellar Bellars....

Craig Stellarmy?
Geoff Twentyman

I was reading a match report and someone posted in the comments about one of the 'Pool banners - did anyone see this:Torres & Tevez ONES A LAZY BOY WHO WON'T PLAYAND ONES A LADY BOY WHO CAN'T PLAY
Ed

Yeah, while the traveling support was almost all outstanding, that was maybe the one low point. As Amy, one of our favorites on Twitter, mentioned, that type of dialogue really only furthers homophobia and negativity, which is something we're pretty adamantly against.

But Torres was absolute shit, marked out of the match by Lucas and then dominated by Coates and company, so the criticism's more than justified. Shocking that the threat of him scoring was nearly non-existent except for the header that Reina saved well.
GerrardsBoxingCoach

I just wrote an Internet-lengthy comment preaching the virtues of our traveling support, but this kind of thing is a shame, and the reason I felt compelled to add that "wankers will be wankers." I'm sure that, if asked, the banner-maker would just say he or she was just "having a bit of fun" and didn't really mean anything more significant than that, but this is like a less purposefully-spiteful version of a Munich chant-- that bit of fun may well cause collateral damage. There are better ways to mock Torres that don't require the invocation of any kind of even potentially offensive homophobic or sexist language. Jesus, did you see his miss against Man U? And personally, I kind of feel bad for him at this point. He was on top of the world, banging in goals and challenging for titles at a big club whose supporters adored him, and now he plays poorly for Chelsea. Like a lot of young men, he made a bad decision for bad reasons, and now he's suffering the consequences with or without his old supporters there to jeer him. Yeah, he's a Judas, but he did score some pretty sweet goals for us-- and still not one against us.
Red2death

Yeah. I still like him. And I only half blame him for leaving. Way too many broken promises over a number of years, mainly by H&G. And then the whole Hodgson fiasco. For a top player (as he was back then, and probably still is somewhere inside him), he should really be aiming for titles. Yes, Dalglish did come in, but how was he to know it wouldn't be just another false dawn. Though admittedly I was surprised he'd move to another Premiership club. Thought his love (or at least liking) for Liverpool ran deeper than that.
Geoff Twentyman

It's just great to see the whole of the squad being used.

It seems very sensible to couple the less pacy centre back pairing with a more defensively capable centre midfield pairing - was this obvious through the game?

On the other hand, I find it a little odd that we played Downing when Carroll wasn't on the pitch, and rested Downing when Carroll was on the pitch - does this seem to be counter productive?
Latortillablanca

a lil bit, ya.
mardia

I think it's about form/scoring tbh. If forced to choose between Downing and Maxi for who's going to score a goal, I'll pick Maxi, particularly against Chelsea's backline.

You are right in saying that Downing and Carroll should play together more, though.
Geoff Twentyman

Just simply in terms of Dowing being the chalk on the boots type winger and Carroll being the traditional number 9, it should be a perfect match.
Waiting for Sterling

Haha, if only. Maybe one day when Carroll gets his confidence back he can convert those chances Downing creates for him.
Yann

I think Carroll has a long way to go. Basic stuff - if
you're going to hit a pen straight down the line, you caress the ball to give
the keeper a chance to get out of the way. The way Andy pinged him, you would
have thought he believed there was a prize for hitting the keeper.
NotTooXabi

Considering the fact that 48 hours earlier, Lucas, Henderson & Enrique gave the league leaders a run for their huge piles of money...their performance today was remarkable. I've had incapacitating hangovers that lasted more than 48 hours. If I run so much as 5k, the idea of walking to the coffee shop two days later is, more often than not, rejected like a 1st year with a fake ID.

The injury to Lucas has everyone wringing their hands, pacing the pub like nervous kin waiting news from the good doc. And rightly so. Until that moment, he was, once again, a the King of Kenny's Jungle. If he so much as misses a training session, he will be missed. Best not to consider what will happen if his absence is prolonged. It could get expensive. For the club and my bar tab.

Finally...whether it was the Tourists or the remaining elements of the Headhunters, you lot were embarrassing tonight. Only noise you made was to boo an injured player. Uncivilized & ignorant ass clowns. No wonder you think John Terry is a legend.
Suarez from the car park...

so can we just call Citeh "huge piles" from now on.
good nickname to add to "twatty outstretched leg" for Hart.
Geoff Twentyman

Let's hope the injury is slight. There's enough squad depth to cover and it give the opportunity for someone to step up - Spearing/Coady.

Of course, you can't replace LL in terms of how he has played this term, but there's always a point where he needs to be rested. If its a short term lay off, lets embrace the positives.

If it's a serious injury, then may the lord have mercy on our souls.....
Bgurakan

We finally jinxed Lucas , hope he is ok, I will never call him good again
Andy

Another fantastic display against chelski!! Lampard not in it, 'side show' a liability and torreschenko in a spanish homeland word of his own. I can't believe anyone paid £50 mil for a striker who hasn't been in any kind of form for 3 years.
Note to plastic flag waving fans - classy Liverpool fans singing a tribute to Gary Speed. Real football fans!!!!!
Geoff Twentyman

torreshenko - genius
CheekyFellow

Haha, I could just "like" your comment, but calling him torreschenko is pure gold.
Steve Brandt

so when does Chelsea put in a bid for Maxi?