Pat Nevin: Most
wanted
With club football now on hold
for a fortnight, columnist and
Chelsea legend Pat Nevin
focuses his full attention on
another enjoyable outing at
Anfield…
No team in the UK can feel
quite as relaxed as Chelsea
right now, even if you can
never really be too
contemplative this early in the
season.
Maybe I use the term relaxed
because it was so tense in the
run-up to Saturday's game at
Anfield. Oddly enough I felt
more laid back before the trips
to the Etihad, Old Trafford and
Goodison Park than I did
before this one. That is
strange because Brendan
Rogers's side aren't
necessarily as strong as either
City, United or arguably even
Everton, so why the pre-match
tension that never really
dissipated until the final
whistle?
It could have been the build-
up. With both teams travelling
in Europe, the eyes of the
media hadn't left the clubs for
a second during the week. I
was at the Bernabeu watching
Liverpool and they certainly
fought well enough against a
Real Madrid side that in
fairness didn't ever have to go
through the gears. They did
however look buoyed and it
seemed, crucially, they had
rested some key figures for
our visit.
For all the chat about
numbers, I think there were
two players in particular that
Brendan needed to perform
on Saturday - Raheem Sterling
and Steven Gerrard. The
former would have a tough
job breaking down our
defence on his best form,
which he isn't in, but Gerrard
is one of that select group of
players who can control
matches at the very top level.
Even at his age he is the class
act at Liverpool and he needed
to be stopped, both managers
were clearly aware of his
importance. As such Brendan
had him well rested and Jose
needed to find a way of
nullifying him.
On the day Jose, as he often
does, out-thought his
counterpart. Oscar was
detailed to ensure that either
Gerrard didn't get on the ball
or when he did, he had no
time to get his head up and
spray passes around the pitch.
Some Kopites might have
complained about the former
England captain's limited effect
on the game, but Oscar for all
his world-class attacking
qualities is also world-class at
closing down and tackling
high up the field. It was a
master class in doing the job
of shutting down an
opponent.
With their skipper uninvolved,
the power base of the tie was
swayed in our direction.
Talking of the power, I was
pretty smug about my final
words on Chelsea TV in the
prelude to the game: ‘Our set
pieces and corners could be
vital in this contest.'
Well okay, it maybe it wasn't
that difficult to call with
Ivanovic, Costa, JT, Cahill and
Matic all hammering in against
a much less physically
powerful home side, so no
one was really surprised that it
was the shear physical
prowess along with a greater
desire that willed Gary Cahill's
goal over the line, just.
Even after the second goal by
Diego Costa however, I still
couldn't really relax and I am
sure that the vast majority of
Chelsea fans watching felt the
same. Maybe it was subliminal,
it is after all November and we
haven't always cruised
through this month over the
past few seasons.
Another thought running
through the darker recesses
of our collective minds was
the late goals lost at both City
and United already this
season. The most negative
among us would have been
thinking that the QPR win was
less than sparkling, the
Shrewsbury victory was a
battle not a cruise, and the
Maribor draw a reminder that
nothing can be taken for
granted. We needn't have
worried but plenty of us did. I
suspect part of the real reason
for the tension was simple, we
really wanted to win this
game, maybe even more than
most others during the
season. Not just because it
gives us a good cushion over
the rest, or that our biggest
rivals have tricky fixtures to
come, but basically we love
beating Liverpool specifically,
maybe more than anyone else
in the Premier League.
There is no getting round it,
and I believe the feeling is
fairly mutual from the red side
of Merseyside, our fans are
desperate to get three points
against them and it really gets
to us when we do not. Even
though I played for Chelsea
and Everton I have never had a
particular antipathy towards
Liverpool. There is no hatred
on my part, but even I would
probably accept that I enjoyed
those three points more than
any other this season, in fact
more than any other since the
last time we beat them at
Anfield.
Maybe it is just down to
history and the way the two
clubs have travelled in
diametrically opposite
directions over the past few
decades. They were the Kings
of Europe when we for a
while could only claim to be
the Kings of King's Road. But
now we regularly reach the
latter stages of the Champions
League and are recent
winners, while their
continental domination grows
ever more distant. There have
of course been the tussles in
that Champions League and
their young supporters
remember Istanbul as we
cherish Munich. The biggest
difference is of course their
inability to win the Premier
League for a generation while
we usurped Manchester
United and now vie with City
for the title.
It must be particularly painful
of course for Liverpool fans
when they expected to win
the title last season only to be
denied in a game against, of
all people, us at their home. In
the end I find myself not
wanting to place too much
feeling or importance on these
games but somehow always
being drawn into them more
and more. Maybe it is the fact
that in my job as a pundit, the
landscape is totally dominated
by former Liverpool players
who understandably see the
tie, to a greater or lesser
extent depending on the
pundit, through red-tinted
spectacles. It can get a touch
grating as many Chelsea fans
have said before.
Hopefully. even if I openly
want Chelsea to win, I am not
myopic. For example I openly
admit that they should have
got a penalty in the second
half when Gary Cahill ‘armed'
the ball. The difference
between being supportive and
being biased is often hard to
spot, then again all of us like
to think of ourselves as being
objective, but it is often in the
eye of the beholder and that
eye isn't always wide open to
the opposition's case. So in the
interests of fairness let me say
that Liverpool played quite
well last week, just not as
good as us…again.