Liverpool vs Chelsea: Top 5 Premier League Games
Producing some of the best games in the history of the club, Liverpool vs Chelsea is always a fiery affair. The clubs have faced eachother 167 times domestically, producing some of the best and worst moments in the clubs history. Out of these 167 domestic games, 34 have been draws with Liverpool winning 75 and losing 58 times. Here are my choices for the top 5 Premier League games vs Chelsea:
5. Liverpool 2 – 0 Chelsea 01st February 2009
High flying Liverpool welcomed Chelsea to Anfield as they looked to continue their pursuit of rivals Manchester United. Chelsea themselves were still harboring ambitions of attaining the top spot and boasted an impressive team with the likes of Lampard, Terry, Anelka and Ballack all starting. Despite a strong start to the season Rafa Benitez and his team had found themselves in a bit of a rut; failing to have won a game in that calendar year whilst Chelsea had recovered from a heavy loss against United to win their last two games.
With Manchester United taking the gap to five points the day before; the game was a tight affair with both teams not wanting to lose further ground in the race for the title. Neither side looked like winning the game until Frank Lampard was controversially sent off for a challenge on Xabi Alonso in the 60th minute. This put Chelsea on the back foot and Alonso saw an effort deflected onto the crossbar soon after.
With Liverpool seeing their opportunity to snatch the three points, they pushed for that important goal and in the 89th minute Torres was on the end of a Fabio Aurelio cross to send Anfield into euphoria. Minutes later an Ashley Cole error was capitalised on by the Spaniard to add insult to injury and send Chelsea back down south with no points.
4. Liverpool 4 – 1 Chelsea 08th May 2012
Reeling off the back of a FA Cup final defeat to the same opposition, Liverpool were looking to exact revenge on a much changed Chelsea side as they faced them in the Premier League. Both teams had struggled in the domestic season; Chelsea going into the game in sixth place with Liverpool below them in eighth.
Liverpool fans needed something to cheer about after coming so agonisingly close to silverware and the team gave them that performance that night. Liverpool rushed to three goals up after half an hour after an own goal from Essien, a goal after Henderson capitalised on a John Terry mistake and a header from Daniel Agger. It could have become a lot worse for Chelsea just before half time, but Stewart Downing let them off by drilling a penalty against the post.
The possibility of a comeback was briefly on the cards as Ramires diverted a Malouda free kick past Reina but just ten minutes later Shelvey was able to beat Turnbull from long range after the back up goalkeeper gave the ball straight to him when he was off his line. The reds had further chances to pile on the embarrassment with chances for Suarez, Carroll and Henderson but all the damage was done in the first half an hour of the game.
3. Chelsea 1 – 3 Liverpool 31st October 2015
In only Jurgen Klopp’s third Premier League game, Liverpool travelled to Stamford Bridge to face the reigning Champions who had struggled to follow up their title win with any sort of form the following season.
Things looked to be turning around for Jose Mourinho and his team as Ramires put the hosts 1-0 up after just four minutes. Jurgen Klopp had at that point failed to win a Premier League game and had only picked up his first win as Liverpool manager three days earlier in a league cup game against Bournemouth. Fortunately for Jurgen Klopp, the little magician was on hand to equalise and then put the team ahead in the 45th and 74th minute with two incredible goals.
Christian Benteke then piled on the pressure for Jose Mourinho, whose second spell at Chelsea would end a month later, with a third goal to put the game to bed. The win saw Liverpool grab three points for the first time in the Premier League under Klopp and would kickstart his Liverpool managerial career.
2. Chelsea 1 – 2 Liverpool 20th November 2011
Liverpool turned up to Stamford Bridge that season looking to pile on the pressure to Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas, the club had to publicly deny rumours of a breakdown in the relationship between the manager and owner and lacklustre Chelsea found themselves 12 points behind leaders Manchester City.
Maxi Rodriguez was recalled into the starting lineup and rewarded manager Dalglish with the opening goal on the 33rd minute after latching onto the end of a sweeping passing move. At half time Chelsea brought on the future Liverpool player Daniel Sturridge and it was his goal that brought Chelsea level after 55 minutes as he squeezed the ball in from a tight angle.
The game looked to be ending as a deadlock until Glen Johnson had a moment of individual brilliance against his old club, bursting onto a Charlie Adam pass on the right; the right back took the ball inside the box before bringing it onto his left foot and slotting it past Petr Cech. Liverpool had snatched the game from Chelsea to mount further pressure on Andre Villas-Boas.
1. Chelsea 0 – 1 Liverpool 06th February 2011
In recent times, Liverpool vs Chelsea has grown into a bit of a rivalry between the two clubs. This was fuelled by the Fernando Torres transfer saga that took place in January 2011 with the much loved Spaniard moving to Premier League rivals Chelsea for £50 million.
After inspiring the reds to a 2-0 victory over his new team in November of that season, Torres went from hero to villain as his first game in Chelsea blue was against his former team. The game was a tight affair and just like for most of his Chelsea career Fernando Torres made little impact on proceedings with the only notable moment being when Daniel Agger left his mark with a rough – but deserving – challenge on the Spaniard.
That was until soon to be Chelsea player Raul Meireles gave Liverpool the lead, the game would finish 1-0 to Liverpool and whilst the game had little impact overall on the season; it showed Torres just what he was missing and left fans chuffed that we were able to get one over on the new pantomime villain so early on into his Chelsea career.
@Loui_Connor
