League Cup: Chelsea 2 - 0 Liverpool

I thought Bridgey and Mikel had good games. We miss Essien when he's gone and seeing him back in the side made me realize January is going to be long without him and Mikel. Sheva was as active (and dare I say good) as I've seen him in a long time and it's always nice when he lucks into a goal (it was actually a fine finish, though the keeper should've done better). Good to have Ricky and Ballack back.

Ben Haim doesn't belong in this side. Remarkably poor. Beletti was far from impressive as well. Carvalho's bizarre back-header almost undid us.

Jesus, just saw that tackle and it borders on assault. No one could pretend that that was an attempt to win the ball, it was almost knee high. disgusting.

I envisage mikel in guantanemo bay for life if he had of tackled poor old crouch in the same manner.

good decision from the ref.

poor old liverpool.

It was a good win for us. I know that we played against a weaker liverpool side but I love the fact that my team shows how much they want to win every single cup. We might not play the most beautiful football but we showed heart and the desire to win everything!! Great performance from Essien, I believe that he could have made the difference in the last Arsenal encounter. It is also very pleasing to see sheva on the score sheet. He may lack the speed but he still tries very hard and luck is on his side. Very excited to see Sinclair on the pitch. The kid needs to play more (more so than SWP. I would rather see a young prospect on the pitch than a player who lacks confidence. As much as I like SWP for being such a good nature guy, I think we need to let him go). It is also good to have Riccy back. He made some mistakes but I'm sure I will be back on his top form. Finally, it is a good clean sheet for Cech, after that mistake he made in Arsenal. In my opinion, he is still the world best keeper and deserves all the credit.

"I love the fact that my team shows how much they want to win every single cup."

Agreed. I've had multiple fans of other clubs question why Chelsea field a full strength side for Carling Cup encounters. It's simple: we want to win EVERY DAMN GAME we're in.

formerly Tshireletso, i am back comrades. was out with some personal commitments. i am glad to be back though.
the writer at the The Guardian is going on about a 2nd string Liverpool, well, we also did not have Drogba and Terry. and furthermore, is it really our business that Rafa is so in love with rotation? the man hs enough arsenal than he can poke a stick at.
have a xmas comrades

Yesterdays game showed some things, which justify "toothless side" verdict, however let's take a look on them one by one. Defence, as some said before me Ben Haim clearly does not belong to this team. He makes too many position mistakes, weak in tackling and slow in recovery runs. I simply do not know why he is in the team, but feel that Pini Zahavi or someone else from Roman's minders insisted on bringing him in. Alex, who is not perfect, but far better than him should be our first choice in absence of JT.

Midfield, we still strong there and triangle of Essien, Mikel and Lampard still looks strong and generally we still win games just because of these players. I have written them in order I evaluate them. In spite of the fact that Lamps scores goals I think that his passing ability differ from game to game and his performance is volatile from poor to great. Nevertheless, pair Essien and Mikel provide the team with consistent and solid performance on every game basis. Twelve mill paid for Mikel couple of years ago seems to be the best deal ever.

Those where the good words to our midfield. I can try to find some for wingers and strikers but it will be really difficult!!! Now when Drogba is abcent from the team our problems clearly appeared on the game lakmus paper. Luck of penetration this is exactly where we are toothless! When Drogba is on the pitch our luck of penetration compensated by his physical ability to go through the defenders, when he is not there and we have less powerful players such Kalou and Sheva we can not bring them to the scoring positions. Shaun Wright Phillips is enthusiastic but this is not enough, in most of the cases he bumps into people and when he goes through his crosses are simply pathetic. Joe Cole, since TSO left, returned to his flamboyant game style and becoming a shadow of the player he was. Malouda who really impressed me from the beginning of the season now hardly appears on the pitch. I do not know what is the reason for this, but if it goes this way he is going to leave us very soon. Yesterday Ballack looked nice and some of his head flicks and passes where really great, but let's see how he develops after injury, so far his performance was far from being consistent. The last, but the least, from the end, is our manager. I have said many words about Avram Grant I can sum it up: "His performance as manger can be compared, probably with Ben-Haims performance as player". Completely inept tactically and illiterate from the football point of view he can not lead us to winning the trophies. I can imagine how Fergi and Wenger are both laughing right now. Well, my friends take a look around Chelsea is not hated anymore everybody loves us! Status quo in Englih football restored. Thank you Roman!!!

I think it was a steady performance.

The scousers will (maybe) argue they didn't have Stevie Me, Reina, Torres or Mascherano (repeat to fade) but we played without JT, Cashley, DD etc. So two pretty evenly matched teams.

In the mould or the usual post-match reviews, I'll chuck in my ratings :

Cech - Solid as always, made some good saves, particularly from Lucas in the first half - 7

Belletti - My preferred choice at right back, because at his best, he's better than Paulo. Just a shame he's not always at his best. Unspectacular last night, lost the ball on a number of occassions - 6

Ben Haim - I'm not his biggest fan, but he defended well, and showed a real urgency to turn defence into attack a.s.a.p - 7

Carvalho - A 7 just for being back. Thnak God.

Bridge - Not convinced Ashley is any better than him. A real threat down the left (once whoever the left winger was got out of the way) - 7

Mikel - Great performance. So calm in possession for a kid. Broke up numerous Liverpool attacks. Even managed to be on the receiving end of a Jon Obi Mikel challenge !! - 8

Essien - The guy is an absolute machine, must be one of the fittest at the club. His loveably wayward shooting was back for us to see, although one or two really troubled Itandje - 7

Lampard - Popped up with a (deserved) goal as he so often does. Showed real creativity, some exquisite passing - 8

Sinclair - Pleased to see him get a start (and bemused as to why AG hooked him so early). Running at their defence, they looked visibly terrified, Carragher called on to stop him on numerous occassions. As is customry with all Chelsea wingers, final ball leaves a lot to be desired - 7

Kalou - His usual frustrating self. Looks a real danger when he takes on his man, then let's himself down with the delivery. On snap-shot in the second half went agonisingly close - 7

Shevchenko - I think he's looked better and better recently. Full of intelligent running last night, and scored which I feel he deserved. Takes a mean free-kick too. - 7

My MOTM - Mikel. If he played for Arsenal, you'd never hear the end of it.

Overall, a good night's work. Into the semi's (no surprise we didn't get the Gooners - fix anyone ???) so job done.

A timely return for Riccy C and Essien mean we're looking stonger in defence, but the reliance on Sheva is still a worry. A big name signed in January is what's needed.

Finally - anyone know why Avram insists on wearing all black attire every game ??? Looks like he's off to a funeral. Maybe a defeat last night would have been the death of his managerial reign at Chelsea....

Fifty - i totally agree with you - i think he believes he is an israel gangster with roots in sicily!!

I do love our solidarity but i miss the flair we had of old - yup you never knew which side was coming out to play - the team who could outclass Man U 5-0 or who would lose to coventry!!! I just hope we buy some good firepower - anelka is perfect for us and we need to add one "zidane", "zola", "messi" type who can unlock a tight game and make you jump out of your seat. When we buy Alves and have JT back - the defence is world class. Our midfield is fantastic with mikel, ballack, lamps, essien, j cole, Wright phillips - but we lack the options up front - it is DD or DD or DD - if you look at other world class teams they have a big one, a little one and a skillful one. We just have one big one that is worthy. Come on Avram - show us the way.

I'd agree with Fifty, pretty much every word. It was a solid performance, very familiar to the old days.

Nick, I think your mate was having a laugh. We didn't play particulary well in the first half but totally dominated the game throughout and always looked likely we'd nick the win. Liverpool's side was only marginally weaker than ours - although their changes were self-inflicted - but they were extraordinarily poor and Benetiz's lack of tactical alterations after they went a goal down makes Grant look like Mourinho.

Crouch - what was he thinking? I'm sure Liverpool's players and manager will get charged for bringing the game into disprepute for the way they surrounded the ref.

Given that Liverpool had even less up front than we did, midfield was the key: Mikel was sublime, Essien strong but frustrating, Lampard so hard-working and played some nice passes - loved the dink outside into space to Bridge for the second goal - it took out two Liverpool players. Sinclair did as well as can be expected and we'll find it over the next two months whether he has what it takes. I like him so far, but then, I like Kalou.

All that said, we do still look like we're going to find it harder to score in this current formation without DD (and Sheva is definitely improving, he can actually trap the ball now) but did you know that a Rafa-managed Liverpool side has NEVER scored at Stamford Bridge? That's seven games in three competitions. They must be intimidated by the Stamford Bridge crowd. Or maybe they are just shit.

I can't agree with your assessments of Sinclair guys. I thought he just looked like a younger inexperienced version of SWP last night. I think he had two good runs at their defence and failed to deliver a telling pass, he run into too many players and lost the ball for my liking. I know he's young and he has promise, but I think we need to loan him out to a premiership team where he could up his game. I think most premiership players can look good in the lower leagues.

And a quick note on that idiot Benitez defending Crouch, I admit it was out of character for the "circus freak" to lunge in like that, but to say it was the refs fault for not protecting him.. well it's laughable. Imagine the headlines if JM had said the same thing, yep we all know the answer to that.

And yes Peter they are definitely just shit!

We won't know how good Sinclair could be until he's played a number of games at the level we expect him to reach, which isn't something he'll get at any other Premiership club. We need to give him games and we need to give him time.

I'll admit I have a liking of Sinclair because he's English (and Christ knows we need decent youngsters), and I have been harsh to Kalou in the past.

On reflection I dont think one was better than the other last night, hence I gave them both a 7.

When you look at how youngsters in other teams improve themselves, it's through playing as often as possible against the best there is. Which is why I found it puzzling for Grant to sub Sinclair before he'd played an hour. Maybe the club dont have the faith in him that I / we do.

Which leads on to me wondering what the actual state of the youth sides at Chelsea is like. If you can't let them play against other top flight sides, when will they play ???

The old adage of 'if they're good enough, they're old enough' doesn't ring true at Chelsea. Where is the fruition of all the globe-trotting Arnesen is being paid hundreds of thousands to do to talent-spot ???

One or two of them will no doubt be involved against QPR in the FA Cup, but Arsenal can play a completely different team and still succeed in the Carling Cup.

Sadly, it appears we can't.

Fifty, I gave what I think the reasons are for this on the Arsenal blog, but essentially it comes down to the fact that there was bugger all investment in our youth set-up for four or five years prior to RA so it will take time to bring players through. Arsenal have a cracking second string side now but remember when we beat their weakened CC side 5-0 at Highbury? That was a Wenger team. It's taken him a long time to produce this lot, it doesn't happen overnight.

Arsenal ARE excellent at this and Wenger is an amazing spotter of talent BUT they've a huge scouting network that cost a lot of time and money to get right. The great thing (for them) is that these things become self-fulfilling - once you get a good reputation for youth coaching, the kids (and their agents!) will always chose you over everybody else because they know they have a good chance at getting first-team action.

I'm frustrated we haven't brought anybody through yet - and the current crop might not be quite good enough for what are very high standards - but we have to be patient. If this bunch: Mancienne, Sahar, Cork, Hutchinson etc aren't quite good enough we should still get money selling them on (as Wenger has done), but if none of the next batch make it, then maybe we should start to worry.

The thing I liked about Sinclair was his comfort when having the ball delivered to him in tight spaces.

Liverpool played a very tight pressing game (until they got knackered and gave up) and it worked pretty well for them, harrassing us quite high up the field and making sure the wingers never got the ball in space. Sinclair didn't look fazed by it at all. Moved the ball on when he could, sent it back round the back four when he couldn't. The main problem with his seemed to be that SWP thing of going charging into defenders: he gets going on a run and can't think of what to do, so just barrels on until he loses the ball. Give him time.

Liverpool looked better to me than they have for a while, at our place at least. If they'd played someone who could shoot accurately they might have given us a game.

Sheva's looking better, yes, but he was still a passenger for most of the game -- 4-3-3 doesn't seem to suit him.

This man Rafael is a disgrace, he did not even have the decency to say "I did not see it". He actually justified Peter Crouch's nasty chop on our little Mikel. I recall Rafael was called AMWAFOV on this blog sometime ago, I totally agree!

AMWAFOV = A man with a face of vagina

Mikel plays with a maturity he shouldn't have at his age. Wonderful stuff. I think the comments about Sinclair were fair and I believe he is a great in the making as long as he gets enough pitch time. Ben Haim has terrible positional sense and I worry whenever he has the ball.
Liverpool as always seem to wear their spiteful faces whenever they play us and it gives me enormous pleasure when we beat them, perhaps even more than beating Arsenal.
I still can't get my head round Avram, though. He looks like a passenger when he's sitting in the dugout, worrying that he's going to be unmasked as a fraud.

Na na na na Avram Avram

A win against Loserpool is always welcome in my book...

Lets take this on to the Blackburn... 16 wins will do this time...

Perhaps Avram behaves that way because as of yet the fans are not totally behind the man, this win however will go a long way to changing that and I think if we do go all the way again in the League Cup that will also change.
Mikel seems to be getting better with every game he plays and is finally starting to show the potential he was said to have had before moving to the Bridge and Sinclair look sharp whenever he plays, hopefully he will get a run out at some point over Christman due to Drogba missing through injury.

Was rather amused by Grant's reaction to the idiotic Sky interviewer post match; the question was raised as to whether Mikel provoked Crouch.

"Provoked?" came the answer with a 'stupid people ask stupid questions' look. Lovely stuff.

Not a bad game - two half strength sides, one apparently taking the competition far more seriously than the other. Scousers are such a different side minus Gerrard.

Liverpool 0, Chelsea 2: Stat of the match

Just to prove my point about my post game recap, FC Fulham (you do know that Stamford Bridge is actually in Fulham, don't you?) not only fielded an older, more experienced side. They also fielded a much more expensive one, in fact, a £87m more expensive one. Plus Graeme Le Saux. I went ahead and did the math since I realize Chelsea fans struggle with values. They do think Carling Cup = Champions League Trophy, after all.

They better watch out though. If Mickey Mouse finds out they're bullying younger, less experienced sides, Disney might rescind their deal. It just doesn't look good for their image to be sponsoring a side that appears to literally try to steal 'empty' calorie candy from children. Once again, our side deserves recognition for holding Goofy & friends to just two goals. Cheers.

Here's the breakdown:
Petr Čech £7m
Wayne Bridge £7m + Graeme Le Saux
Ricardo Carvalho £19.85m
Tal Ben Haim Free
Juliano Belletti £3.7m
Frank Lampard £11m
Mikel John Obi £16m
Michael Essien £24.4m
Andriy Shevchenko £30m
Scott Sinclair £160,000
Salomon Kalou £12m
Michael Ballack Free
Steve Sidwell Free
Joe Cole £6.6m
Total £137.71m + Graeme Le Saux

Charles Itandje £2.75m
Fabio Aurelio Free
Jack Hobbs £150,000
Jamie Carragher Academy*
Alvaro Arbeloa £2.5m
Xabi Alonso £10.7m
Momo Sissoko £5.6m
Lucas Leiva £5m
Andriy Voronin Free
Peter Crouch £7m
Ryan Babel £11.5m
Yossi Benayoun £5m
Nabil El Zhar £200,000
Total £50.4m

* That's pronounced a·cad·e·my /əˈkædəmi/ [uh-kad-uh-mee] just in case you Chelsea fans are unsure.

Again, we seemed to be aiming at this tiny piece of silverware lying at Stamford Bridge. Who cares, it's for Grant. Aren't we or shouldn't we better focus on EPL and Champions League? What about all the sexy football talk? We are what, 2:0 against a very poor/2nd or 3rd choice of the Scousers. I bet JM's laughing his head off. We should be like 4-5 nil.

Thus, that doesn't make Sheva class, though can't deny he was doing better and better.

Good to see Mr. Ballack or "Mr. Emergency Ambulance" back. Looked good and fit. And so as Carvalho. God we missed him like shits.

Where was Alex btw?

"Again, we seemed to be aiming at this tiny piece of silverware lying at Stamford Bridge. Who cares.."

I do.

I'd rather finish the season winning something, anything, than nothing.

The way the Carling Cup has panned out, we have an excellent chance of winning it. The Premier League isn't gone yet but we'll miss DD, ditto the Champs League, and who knows who'll we'll draw in the next round of the FA Cup if we get there.

A trophies a trophy. I'll take any of them thanks.

Yes any trophy is good to win, after all it was the first trophy JM won with the group, and I don't see anything wrong with AG wanting the same thing.

As far as where Alex was, apparently he was with his wife/partner who was about to give birth. Probably a good enough reason to have the night off.

Yea, no offense. I was just wondering other ppl who would be backfiring us for playing such "non-sexy, ugly winning" football again and again. I don't care, even though winning ugly, we bagged in one/two goals, got the three pts we need, and off we hit the road.

Rovers, we are on our way.

KTBFFH!

I don't understand other clubs that don't take it seriously.

If Liverpool couldn't be bothered to field their strongest side against us why didn't they ensure they went out in the first round and save themselves some fixtures.

If you're in it you're in it to win it.

I don't think our game was ugly. Our passing has improved remarkably, even though the finishing leaves something to be desired. LFC may have been a weakened team but that was a deliberate choice. We have good players injured so i supposed we were well matched. Essien was outstanding, MOTM. Riccy showed little sign of rust. Ben haim did well. But there was something off about liverpool, when they conceeded the 1st goal, you could read defeat in their eyes. Carragher's confidence is shot!

Munkeyfeet: i for one don't miss beating man u 5-0 then losing to coventry!

Oh yeah, and i too care about the carling cup. It's good for morale!! And oncwe we have one in the bag then we can confidently go after others. I think we should do our best in every competition. There are no guarantees.

We've got Olympiakos in the knock-out stages of the Champs League.

Liverpool vs Inter
Arsenal vs AC Milan
Celtic vs Barcelona
Schalke vs Porto
Fenerbahce vs Sevilla
Lyon vs ManUSA

Decent draw. Milan v the Gooners should be a good game.

"Decent draw. Milan v the Gooners should be a good game."

It'll only be good Fifty, if Milan win. ;-)

Can't argue with that - pretty good draw for us.

No complaints - nice to finish at home too.

Clive,

Spot on. The hostilities in my office tend to mean at this stage everyone wants all the English clubs to progress as far as possible, but I'd be happy with the Gooners going out to a last-minute own goal from Eboue.

Maybe deflecting off one of JT's broken bones still impaled on his studs......

Yeah don't mind this draw for us, at least we should easily progress to the Quarters hey?
Finishing at home should be good for us but I think we definitely need an away goal in Greece just to give us a bit of a cushion but you know what the other guys are going to say don't you? Easiest draw of the lot out of all the British sides...

Who cares what they say? Does it somehow not count if you get an easy draw? Oh wait -- yes, that would be the same logic that says a two-footed wildly-grimacing lunge at someone's legs doesn't count if the perpetrator was "provoked" by a (black) foreigner.

Maybe those who scoff at our draw should have thought about perhaps winning their groups, hey? (Or did Liverpool not win their group because Marseille "provoked" them into losing at home -- after all Marseille is in France which is foreign, so it must be their fault.)

What I really like about this draw is the fact that it would probably be Liver's last stage of the CL.

(Evil Laughter) Mowahahahahahahaha

:)

Gmen- when you use your petty calculator, make sure you factor the time span as well. Frank Lampard was bought by Chelsea 7 years ago. You also forgot to mention $250M Gerald Houlier spent when he was at cahrge at Liverpoo.

Is it just me or do I think that most people are a little too over confident with regard this draw.

On paper yes it looks the easiest game of all the English sides. But sometimes thses games do come back and bite you hard on the arse!

Anyway on that optimistic note, I would like to wish fellow bloggers and blues fans a very "Happy Christmas" and a special thanks as per usual to the "Three Musketeers", Nick, JD and Tony for their tireless contributions throughout the year, it's greatly appreciated.

Only just seen gman's entry it must have snuck in under the radar. Anyway gman... go back and do some more maths on the cost of the Liverpoo team that played Reading last week.
As we all know the Reading players were bought with some loose change found down the back of a sofa, so how do you account for your 3-1 loss on the basis of money?

Muppet!

Disappointing the Spurs couldn't hold out at the Arse.

Have you ever seen a player that gives the appearance of total disinterest as Berbatov?

A warm hello and a happy festive season to all you blue lions. This comment comes all the way from another continent, it is good to be home finally. I have been supporting Chelsea F.C. for almost a decade now, a lone ranger in these neck of the woods.
Anyhow, enough of about me, Blackburn tomorrow - could have done without that horror tackle by E-boo-aye ..

mark, i always thought rio ferdinand looked like he had other places he would rather be

Another good performance from the lads today too after getting battered in the opening 20 minutes another cracker from Joe steadied the ship.
Hopefully we wont miss Dids too much over the festive period and I'm sure Frank will get to 100 goals for us in the next few games,
One final point on Lamps, heard the Blackburn fans chanting 'you're not fit to wear the shirt' (presumably referring to England), does it annoy others as much as it does me that Frank seems to have been made a scapegoat for England's failings?
People easily forget that he won back to back England fan's player of the year a couple of years back and was the countries top goalscorer during our qualification campaign for the 2006 World Cup. Fickle springs to mind...

Football365 springs to my mind. Considering the amount of vitriol sprayed around on thier letters page towards Lampard and Terry, I'm surprised that either would want to play for England again.

Do these fuckwits want to see a weakened England team devoid of Chelsea players? Now I'm starting to understand why the Manc fans hate England. Urrgh! I need a shower.

Hear hear Nick. I've long advocated the idea of Frank chucking the England towel in and letting Stevie Me do all the all the work. Now it looks like Capelllo is going to plump for Beckham or Stevie Me as Captain. That should motivate JT shouldn't it....not. Beckham had his moments as inspirational Captain but they've all gone now and lest we forget we never won uch with him at the helm and he is now now playing is a sub-standard league in a team that would be lucky to make League One over here. Stevie G is of course an international captain of the fuckwit variety - note the clueless headless chicken performances against Russia nd Croatia for which every other England player (including Ash and JT, despite not playing) were villified for in the press but somehow the arrogant Gerrard received much softer treatment.

I've given up on caring about England so if the Chelsea boys do as well then I'll be even happier to keep them to ourselves.

BTW - was yesterday any different from a Mourinho led performance because I couldn't tell.

"BTW - was yesterday any different from a Mourinho led performance because I couldn’t tell."

Is that a compliment or a criticism?

A criticism on the alleged new style, a compliment on the result!

*walks away to sit back on his favourite part of the fence*

*walks away to sit back on his favourite part of the fence*

Watch out for splinters Tony could ruin your Xmas ;-)