The Week That Is – Anti-Football

Article by e-Liverpool Correspondent Tony Thorne

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If Jose Mourinho was annoyed at Sam Allardyce for setting West Ham up to play “19th Century” football, he can hold gripes at him no longer. Chelsea won a football match at Anfield on Sunday afternoon playing within the laws of the game. But the spirit of Chelsea’s play fell flat in front of a raucous Reds crowd.

Liverpool, though missing the intensity of Jordan Henderson in the middle of the park and carrying Luis Suarez (who was having one of his worst games in a Liverpool shirt), still possessed an attacking verve and swagger and sought to play the ball on the ground. From the fourth minute, Chelsea sought to break up as much of the play as possible through time-wasting, sitting back defending and committing niggling fouls; nothing that the Liverpool faithful are used to seeing from their exciting, attacking side this season. From early in the game Chelsea were effectively playing anti-football. Were it not for Steven Gerrard’s desperately unfortunate slip (ironic that his now famous on-pitch speech contained that phrase “This does not f**king slip now”) the game may well have finished 0-0 (which would have been Liverpool’s first since the Merseyside derby on May 5th 2013).

To Chelsea’s credit, they set up tactically perfect against Liverpool. The greatest successes of the season for Liverpool have come when teams attack at our defence, giving the quick-witted, pacy attackers Raheem Sterling, Daniel Sturridge and Phillippe Coutinho opportunities to push forward between the oppositions’ defence and midfield and create chances for themselves or Luis Suarez. Chelsea played a back nine at times during the game, hoofing long balls to Demba Ba to hold up and bring out from their final third. Liverpool have struggled sometimes to penetrate a well-maintained, rigid and organised defence before this season, notably the defeat against Hull and the narrow victory against West Ham recently.

With the midfield shifted to accommodate both Joe Allen and Lucas Leiva, Coutinho played at the tip of the diamond initially with Sterling pushed up to a forward role. It became difficult for Liverpool to find space behind Chelsea’s midfield, partially because they were alive to the threat Sterling posed and also due to his higher role on the pitch. One would have thought Brendan Rodgers might have considered that Mourinho would set his team up negatively, but all in all, the master defeated his apprentice, albeit in an ugly fashion.

And with Manchester City defeating Crystal Palace, the title race takes another dramatic twist. With a difficult game at Everton to come before Liverpool attempt to repeat City’s feat, Manchester City could top the Premier League before the Reds play again, and the race could effectively be over. It will certainly go to the final weekend.

Palace are safe now and it could be argued that some of their players will be on their summer holidays, as some seemed to be when Manchester City played at Selhurst Park last week. So now Liverpool need city rivals Everton to do them a favour to keep them in the race for the top spot.

If next weekend goes awry for Liverpool, and Chelsea and Manchester City pull away, the Reds could be out of it. There’s no doubt that if that was the case, Liverpool fans would still be receiving more than they ever expected from the season. And, in the spirit of good, interesting football, every Liverpool fan would hope to see City lift the trophy over the anti-football playing Chelsea. But it’s not over yet. #WeGoAgain

Do you think Chelsea play “anti-football”? Did Mourinho set up perfect tactics? Get involved on Twitter with @e_footballnet & @TTonal using the hashtag #TWTI (The Week That Is).

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