The Liverpool Way - First Team

What better way could there be to spend your birthday than to meet up with friends and support the reds? I couldn't think of a better one, so I did. Having arrived in London on the Saturday to be put up by the local TLW representative, Christian, and having had a brilliant Saturday night out in sarf London, I always knew the weekend would be a success – no matter the result on Sunday.

Of course, I also knew beforehand that it was going to be a very difficult fixture and was more than half expecting us to get nothing at all from the game. We didn't, and sadly, we didn't deserve to.

Benitez's team selection was – again – surpriseing to say the least. Obviously, Kirkland was bound to get his chance sooner rather than later with Dudek's less than assured performances of late, but it was the surprise inclusion of Salif Diao in favour of Dietmar Hamann, Djimi Traore's start at left back and to a lesser extent Kewell ousting Warnock that had Reds fans in the west stand wondering what was going on in the Spaniard's head.

We'd decided to go out there early to cure the hangovers from Saturday night by fighting fire with fire. It didn't work. The prematch atmosphere round Stamford Bridge is so much different than that at Anfield. Instead of being situated in an old residential area with loads of good pubs, Stamford Bridge is surrounded by tapas bars and organic food shops and we weren't surprised when we ran into Sven Göran Eriksson just outside the ground.

This was, after all, his favoured club in England. Surprisingly enough though, there were no women with him, just goons. A few scouse lads, who'd had a fair bit to drink, sang "who the fucking hell are you" but Eriksson didn't stop to chat.

The game started with Liverpool very much on the back foot. Damien Duff was enjoying life on the left and tore Josemi to shreds in the opening half. Carragher and Hyypiä, while careful and focused, seemed to have a fair bit of trouble keeping the prolific Lennox Lewis lookalike Didier Drogba at bay, but managed it and he was withdrawn before half time apparently carrying an injury. Personally, I reckon it was seeing Carragher again that did it…

The Chelsea fans were at their unimaginative best chanting "Champions League yer 'avin' a larf" to which there could be no other response than repeats of "four times". Well, they asked for it, didn't they.

Chelsea dominated the opening stages with Liverpool rarely looking likely to score. Kirkland made a good stop to deny Drogba and Gudjohnson following another cross by Duff. Liverpool's only chances in the first half fell to Cissé, who at least looked arsed today.

The first one should have resulted in a goal after great work by Kewell (yeah, I was surprised too) on the left, but the Frenchman headed over the Czech Cech's goal. The other was a good long range effort after a run across the box having shrugged off a challenge by Terry.

Chelsea ended the half on top with chances falling to Frank Lampard, who shot wide after finding himself unmarked on the edge of the box, and he also failed to make Kirkland work when heading wide from a very good position after a right wing cross.

To be honest, we were pleased to be going in at half time with the scores still level. On the other hand it didn't seem that unrealistic that we'd actually be able to get something from the game.

It only needed added concentration in the opposition's half and good passing and some more heart from certain players. Liverpool's best performers in the first half were the defensive duo of Carragher and Hyypiä but Traore had also made a few crucial interventions from his left back role.

Josemi looked out of his depth against Duff who was later to tire and be taken off. In the middle of the park, Alonso never got his passing going the way he (and we) would have liked. Diao did nothing to warrant his inclusion over Hamann.

The last 45 minutes were a lot brighter and it seemed Benitez had tried to get the team to concentrate on keeping possession for a bit longer. Garcia had a shot blocked but that was about it from him in the second half. He seems to epitomise Benitez's new look Liverpool in the sense that he is lively and dangerous at home yet frustratingly anonymous when playing away from Anfield.

Benitez will need to address this problem soon or else he will be facing midtable blues come Christmas. One could argue that we are no better than that as the Chelsea defeat leaves us 11th with 3 defeats in the opening 7 league games.

Whatever it is that is keeping our key attacking players from performing away from home and thus failing to lift the others, we need to sort it out before it becomes even more of a problem than it currently is.

With so many of Chelsea's goals arriving from set plays, coupled with the fact that so many of ours are conceded in the same fashion, it didn't really come as a surprise that the goal eventually came from a free kick on our left.

Played in low, the ball was met by substitute Cole racing in front of the otherwise decent Riise and Kirkland was left with absolutely no chance. It was a cruel blow mid way through the second half and just like under Houllier we knew there was no way we were getting back in this.

The impressive and assured Kirkland got a second chance to show his worth saving brilliantly from Cole only to have the linesman in front of us finally doing his job of waving the Chelsea player offside. That's taking nothing away from Kirky as it really was a wonderful save. Kirkland now only needs to keep himself injury free for more than 15 minutes to win the England no. 1 jersey from whichever chump is currently wearing it.

Chelsea came a lot closer to extending the lead than we came to equalising. Substitutions of Josemi, Garcia and Diao in favour of Baros, Finnan and Hamann failed to inspire anything. Kewell had to head the ball off the line following another Chelsea corner, but other than that Hyypiä and the ever impressive Carragher defended well.

Alonso, while still trying his best to pass the ball around, failed to make his mark on the game and his most notable contribution was a series of freekicks from roughly the same position – and they were of a quality that any Sunday League player would easily be able to match.

The last one in the final minute summed up the afternoon perfectly and as the ball sailed high over the cross bar, you could hear reds fans sinking to their seat in disappointment in between relieved jeers from the shed end. It just wasn't to be. Where was Cheyrou when we needed him?

Liverpool’s best player was, for me, Jamie Carragher. These days he seems to be the only player with that extra bit of character and presence. Mix that up with his passion and ability to focus non stop on the game for 90 minutes then there was no way he could be overlooked.

I feel he has really grown in the central role. Maybe this game will have done him a few favours with the womaniser, sorry England manager, although I suspect Ledley King and John terry will be in ahead of him, playing for London clubs as they are. I really hope Carragher doesn't care and takes heart from the fact that his hero status amongst reds fans is finally growing by the game. (He won't care in the least I can assure you! - Editor)

All in all I thought we looked reasonably solid at the back. A team with the quality of Chelsea is always going to create openings no matter the opponents, but it was the current inability to carve out anything for ourselves at the other end when away from Anfield that is the most worrying aspect for us at the moment.

Sort it out, Mr. Benitez, and you will have gone along way towards making us a side to be reckoned with again. Now let's get these boring internationals over and done with and put things right at Fulham in a fortnight's time.

Liverpool: Kirkland, Josemi (Baros), Carragher, Hyypia, Traore; Garcia (Finnan), Diao (Hamman), Alonso, Riise; Kewell; Cisse.

Agree or disagree? Email me at peter@liverpoolway.co.uk

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