Liverpool 1-1

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Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea: Willian lobs Simon Mignolet with audacious effort to cancel out Mohamed Salah's opener as the spoils are shared at Anfield

By Rob Draper

It became the duel of the one who got away and the one who chose to stay. Liverpool and Chelsea contested the points at Anfield on Saturday but it was hard to turn the eye away from the two outstanding performers in Mohamed Salah and Eden Hazard.

Hazard, the one who stayed, dominated the first half, bewitching Liverpool and threatening to lead Chelsea to victory. Salah, the player sold by Chelsea in 2016 after two years away on loan, had his moment in the second half, adding to his burgeoning reputation.

And he looked to have won Liverpool the game with his calm 65th- minute strike which was the zenith of another fine display. It wasn't to be. The Premier League champions would get a little lucky on 85 minutes when a Willian cross looped over Simon Mignolet.


But you could argue that Chelsea had earned that. Excellent in the first half, when Hazard was exquisite, they played their part in an absorbing encounter which entertained throughout. Both teams had delightful moments and both demonstrated the weaknesses which will, in all probability leave them short of a League title this season.

By this afternoon they could be 14 points and 11 points respectively behind Manchester City, after 13 games played. But neither should be discouraged by the point, even though Liverpool will feel an important victory was wrested away from them and Jurgen Klopp acknowledged as much.

'In our situation, if we and the other clubs would really think about Manchester City we would be all really crazy,' he said. 'How could we get Manchester City? I didn't think a second about Man City. What I thought was that we really should have won. And then we would have three points more.

'The position is still OK but we have to improve. We can do better but the boys did well. A lot of things could have happened. The boys did really well so I am happy about that but not happy about the result. Most parts of the game were good but it doesn't feel like that.'


Antonio Conte, whose team endured a midweek Champions League trip to Azerbaijan, saw it somewhat differently.

'Liverpool was lucky to score and then to draw,' he said. He was closer to the mark when he added: 'I think we played in a really good way. We had a tactical play. We must be pleased for the game after a long travel and no rest for my players.

'I was very happy to see a great reaction of my players, with the way they fight and don't accept a bad result. We tried also to win the game, so I think we must be pleased, despite the draw.'

Conte had fielded as solid a midfield as is possible in Danny Drinkwater, N'Golo Kante and Tiemoue Bakayoko, with their jaunt to Baku meaning they had come here first and foremost to be hard to beat.

However, because of one man's dominance, it didn't turn out that way in the first half. Hazard has been unplayable of late. In the opening exchanges he consistently befuddled James Milner and Jordan Henderson. Deft touches would leave the Englishmen looking foolish, which they aren't; Hazard is simply too good for most players when in this mood.

'Wow!' was Klopp's reaction to the Belgian. 'Not too bad, to be honest. It was not the most thankful job to defend him alone.'


Individual moments stood out, like when, with a simple roll of the shoulders and swift switch of his centre of gravity, he eased away from Henderson in the 10th minute before embarking on a dribble which took him past four players.

Or the moment on 18 minutes when Drinkwater dropped a lofted ball, which is his trademark pass, into his path. Hazard saw it coming over his shoulder and brought it down dead with his foot as if were using the palm of his hand.

He then played in Drinkwater on 23 minutes and Mignolet had to rush from his line to smother the chance. Moments later Hazard played the pass which provided a shooting chance for Davide Zappacosta, which Mignolet parried away.

It wasn't until the 41st minute that Liverpool created a moment of genuine danger, Salah slithering away to unleash a shot just wide of Thibaut Courtois' post.

Liverpool, with Daniel Sturridge, preferred to Roberto Firmino and troubling his former club, responded well after the break though Hazard continued to threaten and twice Zappacosta almost found Alvaro Morata.

But Chelsea were beginning to tire and Liverpool took the lead on 65 minutes. Philippe Coutinho grasped the ball and surged goal-wards. Chelsea, who until this point had been so solid with Cesar Azpilicueta and Andreas Christensen excellent, took a step back.

Coutinho slipped the ball into the box and Bakayoko made the fatal error, mis-controlling and allowing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to get the merest of touches to deliver it into the path of Salah. Eight yards out, a point to prove and in outstanding form, the Egyptian showed perfect poise as he struck it low past Courtois. He declined to celebrate, presumably in deference to the horrific terrorist attack in his home country on Friday.

On came Cesc Fabregas, Pedro and then Willian, with Marcos Alonso volleying a super chance high over the bar on 83 minutes.

Klopp would argue that the ref prevented him making his own crucial substitution just before the equaliser. It came from Willian, who had been on the pitch for just three minutes. Cutting inside the Brazilian lifted a cross goalwards, the ball looping high and closer to goal than he intended and catching out Mignolet, dipping under the crossbar.

Salah almost had the last word with an added-time strike which Courtois did well to push away. But by then, Chelsea had made their point and refused to yield.


LIVERPOOL (4-3-3): Mignolet 6; Gomez 6, Matip 7, Klavan 5, Moreno 6; Milner 6, Henderson 6, Coutinho 7 (Lallana 6 88min); Salah 8, Sturridge 5 (Wijnaldum 6 66min), Oxlade-Chamberlain 6 (Mane 88min)

SUBS UNUSED: Karius, Firmino, Robertson, Alexander-Arnold

GOALS: Salah 65


CHELSEA (3-5-1-1): Courtois 6; Azpilicueta 7, Christensen 6, Cahill 5; Zappacosta 5 (Willian 7 82min), Kante 7, Bakayoko 5 (Pedro 5 76min), Drinkwater 6 (Fabregas 7 74min), Alonso 5; Hazard 8; Morata 7

SUBS UNUSED: Caballero, Rudiger, Moses, David Luiz


REFEREE: Michael Oliver

ATTENDANCE: 53,225

Ratings by Timothy Abraham




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Telegraph:

Liverpool 1 Chelsea 1: Willian's wayward cross finds the net to rescue visitors

Sam Wallace

In the parallel universe which Jurgen Klopp imagined post-match, Ragnor Klavan was in exactly the right place to block Willian’s unconventional equalising goal, and from there one can only presume that Liverpool won the game, chalking up a statement victory over the champions.

Back in the real world, the cross that the Brazilian substitute hit to the far post looped over Simon Mignolet, vindicating Antonio Conte’s three second-half changes, and as ever Chelsea found a way to salvage something from a match they might have lost. Strictly speaking this was ground conceded in the Premier League title race to Manchester United, and probably Manchester City too, but you would not have known it from the way Antonio Conte celebrated at the end.

They scored their equaliser with five minutes of regulation time remaining, just when Liverpool were beginning to believe that the Premier League’s top goalscorer Mohamed Salah had given them a major victory. The Egyptian has ten goals in the league and is in bewitching form, the closest thing that Liverpool have to Chelsea’s star player Eden Hazard who was outstanding in the first half but never got the goal he threatened to score.

Klopp was left to bemoan what he said was referee Michael Oliver’s decision to block Liverpool’s late substitutions and attendant tactical changes because he thought they were an attempt to waste time. Klopp said it was that which prevented him from switching to a five-man defence for the closing stages. From the footage, with Adam Lallana and Sadio Mane warming up, it seemed that perhaps they were not as ready as Klopp thought they were.

“We wanted to bring a player on and you have to give advice [to the player] and he [Oliver] says ‘No’, and after the game I was not happy about it,” Klopp said. “I wanted to change. We did afterwards and went to five at the back. In my mind Ragnor Klavan would have been exactly in the position where Willian crossed the ball for the goal and we could have blocked the cross.


“It doesn’t feel too good when you can’t change the system because the ref thought it was time-play [time-wasting]. I have no idea why. The assistant next to me was prepared, I was prepared, the player was prepared. The ref said, ‘The goal was four minutes after you wanted to change’. Right!”

At full time, Klopp, by then on the pitch, found himself obliged to calm down the diminutive Mane, towering over his Senegalese striker like a patient parent guiding his dissenting child out the toy department. Klopp said that Mane was angry because he had been admonished for failing to carry out a tactical change that his manager had demanded of him. Mane had said it had not happened because Salah had been determined to hold his position.

“Mo [Salah] already had 90 minutes in his legs so it would have made more sense that Sadio is closer to right wing,” Klopp said. “It’s not a big thing. He could have done it in the dressing room, it would have been the same thing and everything is sorted.”

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The mood was very much that this could have been so much better for Liverpool, and Klopp seemed regretful despite his reference to much worse things happening in this “crazy world”, a reference no doubt to the terrorist attack on the mosque in Sinai in Salah’s home nation. The player seemed to moderate his goal celebration for that reason. One presumes it was not out of deference to Chelsea, where he had a largely unhappy spell.

Klopp was asked whether Salah was in the right frame of mind to play and his answer was frank. “It’s not the place to talk about this,” he said. “Our life in football as professionals is [that] nobody cares how we feel. We have to deliver. Obviously he was able to do that.”

Klopp made the big decision to rest Mane and only introduce him late on, presumably on the basis that he is still coming back to fitness. Conte had done much the same after the mid-week Champions League trip to Azerbaijan, keeping Cesc Fabregas, Willian and Pedro on the bench and then unleashing them late. He started with Danny Drinkwater and Tiemoue Bakayoko in midfield, pointing out that it was important for these players to be trusted in big games.

“I am very happy to see a great reaction from my players,” Conte said.

“They had a great desire to fight and not accept a bad result against Liverpool. We drew level and tried to win the game. We must be pleased despite the draw.”

As for Willian’s cross that ended up in the back of Mignolet’s net, Conte said that it mattered little what the Brazilian intended, only what the consequences were. They have not lost in the league since that shock defeat to Crystal Palace on Oct 14 and you can that whatever their problems, this side have the grit that has distinguished Chelsea teams of the last 14 years.

Klopp selected Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Daniel Sturridge ahead of Mane and Roberto Firmino, and Oxlade-Chamberlain did have a major role in the Salah goal. In the first half, Salah turned Gary Cahill before Andreas Christensen got across to block the shot. In the last five minutes before the break Salah curled a left-foot shot just outside of Thibaut Courtois’s right-hand post. Although Philippe Coutinho was key in creating the goal for Salah, it was noticeable just how much the Egyptian is currently eclipsing his Brazilian team-mate.


Out of possession, Conte’s formation switched to a five-man defence and Chelsea were hard to break down. At the start of the second half, Hazard went over on the edge of the Liverpool area, his ankle connecting with James Milner’s foot. The momentum of his fall suggested that he had waited for the contact and acted accordingly and Oliver shook his head and waved the play on.

The goal came for Liverpool when at last Coutinho forced the issue. The Brazilian drove into the box and the ball broke away from him, fatally pushed into the path of Oxlade-Chamberlain by Bakayoko’s wayward touch. The Englishman who rejected Chelsea prodded the ball forward, and the Egyptian rejected by Chelsea did the rest, beating Courtois from close range.

In the moments after the goal Klopp substituted Sturridge, moved Salah to a central position and brought Georginio Wijnaldum into midfield but it was Willian, chipping the ball back across goal and over Mignolet, who had the decisive final touch.