I don't agree with this "deserved to" anything. we got one goal, they got one goal. end of. We got 20 odd chances a whole 6 on target, many really weak. sterling missed 3 very good chances. The stas about possession, changes, corners are meaningless when all that matter is goals.... they can give us a warm fuzzy feeling that we competed well with them... we knew that from watching the game anyway! Mourinho said it all when he said we didn't "deserve to lose" and rodgers said it all too.. "he'll be disappointed" Both men had a game plan, its honors even form the first leg! no they controlled the game well, we played very well... it was highly entertaining and while I think 1-1 wasn't enough it was a good result and we can go there having not lost the tie. we can try and get a goal there and see what we do.. who knows.... we might even upset the "favorites"
Some good points MITO as much as we played very well we really need to be more ruthless and that lack of a striker is killing us, put a fit Sturridge into that game and we win 3-1. This needs sorting but as much as Rodgers seems to be learning slowly he just doesn't seem to want to address this issue.
I would agree with that assessment... it is ifs and buts of course as had we scored first or taken the lead chelsea would have reacted i feel. Mikel hurts them badly creatively. Sterling off his left was dire. i know he socred off his left but i reckon that was a fluke. at least two that fell to him i reckon sturrdige would have got though prob not borini and he is a shovel foot too. Lallana's shot was good. a foot higher or lower and it is in as courtois couldn't reach anything but where it was at.... and that was a great save Gerrard's one... really have to say it was good but he should have got it actually on target. Against wrong foot so that made it a good effort but if he'd got it 2 inches more on target it was in off the post. compared to the few few chances last year as we battered away at them you have to say we created a lot more as they sought to control the game... your point on rodgers is a good one.. it seems to take him a very long time to come to realisations but when he does make a change he does seem to get it right... pity he reverts to the likes of gerrard and johnson instantly in comparison. I think honestly sturridge is who he is waiting for and he has stuck in borini rather than anyone else in the mean time which indicates he was work not statues. I do feel cheslea have had a good sighter now and will have a plan in game 2. I don't have much confidence that LFC will have a trick to change it for the second leg therefore we have to convert the chances that come and work even harder in the press.
Agree with most points. Chelsea seemed to play well within themselves. They decided that they would defend and not go toe to toe with us. Their strategy was almost: "Show me what you've got". So our performance must be viewed in that light and we should not view this as some indication that we are now as we were last season - like some papers are stating. We attacked non stop because we were allowed to and they were playing counterattacking football. The next leg will show our true position. If we dominate them as we have yesterday we have indeed truned the corner and top 4 is well within reach.
To be honest, even if his injury has healed, you wont have a fit Sturridge for a while. With this long a lay off, will take him a couple weeks or more to get back to his usual levels of match fitness, thats AFTER the injury has healed.
Yeah I agree, I was referring to the top 4 part though and not the game against you lot but him in the team will also help there.
injury has been healed months.. he's been in us training to resolve injury long term.. some stat is 9 similar injurys over career so this was a long rehab to fix. he had as long a lay off in season one as i alluded to and picked up right away. He is fit but being worked to ensure this doesn't repeat. carl's comment is very sensible. this game had a set of tactics from both sides. next game could look totally different just by tactical approach. I would expect that mourinho will seek to have some control again but knows that he needs to score too so I'd expect oscar and their more usual team set up. IMO if they score first they will win.
Chelsea will be dominant in the next leg - they will come at us. Will be a different question being asked but it could suit us as we'll have more space to attack.
Wumming aside I thought you played well last night, got at Chelsea from the off and didn't allow them to settle into any sort of rythmn and second half dominated the play. I don't think many would have predicted that level of domination tbf, and you could have easily won the game and were maybe unfortunate not to given the balance of play. Having seen all the major incidents again, I think Atkinson actually had a good game and probably got all the major calls right, unlike him, as he's usually clueless.
He has been for the last 10 games or so. Carra highlighted this on MNF the other day. It also coincides with us dropping Mario as a lone striker....makes all the talk about his departure nonsense (I hope!!)
Wouldn't say he's been excellent in every game. Yesterday was his best performance for me. And Carragher talks a lot of sh*t quite frankly. He's quick to criticise the likes of Sakho and Can, who I feel have had the biggest impact on this team.
Put a fit Sturridge in the game and Mourinho sets up differently. Personally, I thought we did okay but Chelsea never moved out of second gear. I always felt they could have done more but were happy to sit back and soak up the pressure before taking the game back to the Bridge.
I disagree, our intensity stopped them controlling the game and put them under pressure, doing it again is the trick.
You think that was a no holds barred performing Chelsea then...? I certainly don't. They sat back and often had two walls of players for us to break down. How often do we see them play with two DMs nowadays...? They came to see out the game, confident that they'd do the business in the second leg. Sure, we should have scored more and won comfortably but Mourinho knows we are dog **** at finishing. How many games have we managed to score more than a single goal this season...? Fair enough, our players deserve credit as they performed very well. But I believe Chelsea let us play. Edit: 31 goals in 22 league games. That's an average of 1.4 goals a game. I have to admit that that is better than I expect but its still short for an attacking team.
